Potato industry in China to be more productive in years ahead

Potato industry has been turned into a vital agro-business in China to effect a remarkable change to the regional economic structure with its present potato grown acreage making up one fourth of the total grown acreage worldwide.

Farmers around China no longer take potato merely as a favorite dish or food on their table. Instead, potato farmers, particularly those in northwestern and southwestern China, such as Inner Mongolia and Gansu province in the north and northwest, and the provinces of Guizhou and Yunnan in the southwest, all regard it as one of vital agro-businesses with huge business opportunities.

China's total potato acreage reached approximately 5.33 million hectares in 2008, and the combined acreage under potato in the mid-west provinces and regions constitutes 62.5 percent of the total potato-planted area in the country. And potato has become the primary source of food and income for local farmers in these areas.

Take poor and backward Dingxi city of Gansu province in northwest China. Local farmers began growing potatoes back in 1996. The city currently reapes a revenue of 17.6 billion yuan from potato industry, accounting for 16.7 percent of its GDP, as well as 26.7 percent of an average annual per-capita income for local farmers and their family members.