The Potato of the Future: Opportunities and Challenges in Sustainable Agri-food Systems

Abstract

In the coming decades, feeding the expanded global population nutritiously and sustainably will require substantial improvements to the global food system worldwide. The main challenge will be how to produce more food with the same or fewer resources and waste less. Food security has four dimenespecially the case in Africa wheresions: food availability, food access, food use and quality, and food stability. Among several other food sources, the potato crop is one that can help match all these constraints worldwide due to its highly diverse distribution pattern, and its current cultivation and demand, particularly in developing countries with high levels of poverty, hunger, and malnutrition. After an overview of the current situation of global hunger, food security, and agricultural growth, followed by a review of the importance of the potato in the current global food system and its role played as a food security crop, this paper analyses and discusses how potato research and innovation can contribute to sustainable agri-food systems comparing rural and industrial agri-food systems with reference to food security indicators. It concludes with a discussion about the challenges for sustainable potato cropping enhancement considering the needs to increase productivity in rural-based potato food systems that predominate in low-income countries, while promoting better resource management and optimization in industrial-based agri-food systems considering factors such as quality, diversity of products, health impacts, and climate change effects. Research and innovation options and policies that could facilitate the requirements of both rural and industrial potato-based agri-food systems are described.

Potato Production in Northwestern Europe (Germany, France, the Netherlands, United Kingdom, Belgium): Characteristics, Issues, Challenges and Opportunities

“…But high-quality seed production should also be delocalized outside NWEC-05 to other European, Latin America, North African and Asian regions, so that potato production in such regions will be enhanced and contribute more directly to global food security in a more sustainable way. As stated by Devaux et al (2021), in the mid to long-term enhancement of local and decentralized high quality seed production, multiplication and distribution systems (reducing the dependency on international transports thereby lowering long distance transportation costs whilst reducing the risks associated with the spread of pest and disease), will be suitable option for more sustainability in the global potato production sector. Support to the selection and promotion of locally adapted, demand-led potato varieties, combined with rapid seed multiplication techniques is a corollary.…”

“…To conclude, one can summarize that potato production in NWEC-05, as a world potato leader region, is expected to develop in a sustainable way providing a considerable reduction in its environmental footprint, increasing income generation and contributing sustainably to increased food security worldwide. To reach this, as stated by Andrivon (2017) and developed by Devaux et al (2021), two main options need to be considered: (i) produce more with less through better input management and optimization; (ii) produce just as much but waste less, both before and after harvest through better value chain management, better storage, processing, and marketing operations and responding to increased involvement and awareness of consumers.…”

Modulation of JA signalling reveals the influence of StJAZ1‐like on tuber initiation and tuber bulking in potato

“…Solanum tuberosum L. (potato), the third most consumed food crop after Oryza sativa (rice) and Triticum aestivum (wheat), is cultivated worldwide for its edible tubers (Stokstad, 2019). Potato tubers store high quantities of starch, vitamins and balanced essential amino acids, are currently used as a staple food in some developing countries and play a critical role in ensuring food security (Devaux et al, 2021). The mechanism that regulates tuber formation and growth in potato has attracted great interest, not only because of its growing economic and nutritional value, but also because it serves as a model system to understand the development of plant storage organs.…”

New Polyfunctional Biorationals Use to Achieve Competitive Yield of Organic Potatoes in the North-West Russian Ecosystem

“…However, intensive agriculture consumes more and more natural resources, causing significant and often irreparable damage to the environment [ 1 ]. Data compiled by a team of authors [ 4 ] on the global supply of food, feed and other industrial uses of agricultural products suggest that potato-based agri-food systems provide significant opportunities for food security and income generation in the face of anticipated trends in population growth, climate change, conflict, migration, inequality and the recent effects of the COVID-19 crisis.…”