Publications /  Annual Report 1998

China’s production of over 48 million tons of potato and over 117 million tons of sweetpotato make it the world’s largest producer of both these commodities. More remarkable still, China now accounts for 24 percent of global potato production and 85 percent of the world’s sweetpotato output on an annual average basis (FAOSTAT, June 1998). In China itself, sweetpotato and potato currently rank as the second and fifth most important food crops in terms of annual production.

Potato
The average annual growth rate in potato production in China over the last decade has been higher than any of the other major food crops (Fig. 1). In fact, the growth rate in potato production in China for the last 35 years has been an extraordinary 3.9 percent. So much so that the gap between FAO projections and actual output has become increasingly apparent in the last decade (Fig. 2). The growth rate in area planted has also exceeded that of the other principal commodities for the last 10 years, proving more important than yields in sustaining the expansion in potato output. Evidence from China and other parts of Asia points to two critical reasons for this remarkable expansion in potato output.

First, as incomes have improved and urbanization has accelerated with economic growth in China, consumers have sought to diversify their food intake beyond a strictly cereal-based diet. Chinese, as with consumers almost everywhere, like the taste of potatoes. Their neutral flavor makes potatoes a facile and complementary ingredient in local dishes that rely on traditional spices and other foods for a colorful appearance and taste. Moreover, the fast-food restaurant boom that started in Hong Kong and Taiwan now has spread throughout China. Once considered a high-priced, luxury dish, french-fries are fast becoming a popular item not only in restaurants run by international chains, but also in Chinese-operated eating establishments and supermarkets.

Second, potato is a profitable crop for small farmers. Given the plant’s versatility, potato can thrive in the temperate and mountainous growing areas in the northern part of the country, as well as in the drained paddy fields and hilly parts more characteristic of semi-tropical, southwestern China. Moreover, with the introduction of improved germplasm, the growth rate in yields has actually accelerated as area planted has expanded in recent years. This trend suggests that with better technology, in certain parts of the country potato is being planted instead of crops such as rice on the more favorable land, as farmers are switching to higher-value crops in an effort to capture greater incomes.

Sweetpotato
Income growth and urbanization have had perhaps an even more interesting impact on sweetpotato—although this impact has been slower to affect growth rates in production and area planted. With economic expansion, consumers in China have also increased their demand for meat and processed products. In the case of sweetpotato, this shift in consumption means that sweetpotato has been increasingly utilized as a source of pigfeed—both roots and vines. During 1995–97, some 30 to 50 million tons of sweetpotato roots alone served this purpose. So it is no mere coincidence that:

* China is now the world’s largest pig producer;
* over 80 percent of pig production takes place at the household or village level;
* the largest pig-producing province in China is Sichuan;
* Sichuan is a maize-deficient province;
* Sichuan Province alone produces more sweetpotato than all other developing countries combined; and
* in recent years, a growing proportion of sweetpotato production in Sichuan has been used to feed pigs.

In effect, small farmers in Sichuan, as in other parts of China, have responded to shifts in eating habits by transforming sweetpotatoes into "meat," capturing the value-added at the household level. In doing so, they essentially use sweetpotato as one component in an overall strategy to sustain food security at the farm and national level.

A parallel phenomenon has been the growth in sweetpotato processing for both food and non-food products. Recent research in both Shandong and Sichuan Provinces points to a booming demand for sweetpotato starch in the form of noodles, both for domestic consumption and for export. Procedures for extracting starch from roots at the village level include the use of by-products in the form of starch-free sweetpotato mash for feed. This practice suggests a symbiotic rather than competitive relation between the new uses of sweetpotato.

Given these emerging markets for sweetpotato in its processed form, recent estimates of growth rates in production and area planted for this crop reflect a sharp reversal of earlier downward trends (Fig. 3). With further improvements in potato and sweetpotato productivity, and with processing on line for diffusion in the years ahead, China’s agrarian transformation underground is well positioned for further expansion in the new millennium.

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