15 August 2007Clifford Coonan
As drought continues to wreak havoc on China's farmland, agriculture experts are considering moving away from the traditional staple food - rice - and encouraging farmers to plant potatoes instead.
While Chinese food aficionados may groan at the prospect of fried rice giving way to mashed potatoes and chips at meal times, harsh drought in many agricultural areas means a switch could be necessary.
The humble spud is more drought-resistant and it would make a more practical alternative to rice, as well as wheat, which is the northern Chinese staple.
Rice is central to the country's eating culture and the word for rice ("fan") is the same as the word for food - a common greeting is "Have you eaten rice?" A steady government job is known as "the iron rice bowl".
China has more than 20 per cent of the world's population but only 7 per cent of its arable land and while farming techniques have been honed during 7,000 years of agriculture, more recent challenges such as pollution are calling for new measures.
"The potato is more drought-resistant than rice and wheat, which suits China better as 60 per cent of the country's arable land is dry," Qu Dongyu, a farming specialist with the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, said.
A problem in switching would be working out how to provide subsidies to persuade farmers to move away from rice and wheat.
China is the world's largest grower of potatoes and the potato has a history as a fallback crop in dusty areas, such as in the dry north-west, where it is grown when the wheat crop fails because it can produce at least 60 per cent of its normal yield even in dry times. The local farmers there call it the "life-saving grain" - in China, it is classified as a grain crop.
Flooding has made the headlines in China this summer but the country also suffers from a shortage of 30 billion cubic metres of water for irrigation every year.
"The potato is not only more nutritious, potato yields per hectare weigh three to four times more than other crops," said Chen Fan, a researcher with the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
"The yield per unit of rice, corn and wheat is not expected to increase because of technology limitations, which means the potato is a better option to meet the food demand of 1.3 billion people," said Mr Chen.
The Land and Resources ministry says China has lost nearly 7 per cent of its arable land in the past decade. Also farmlands are suffering badly from pollution and soil erosion. One-sixth of China's total arable lands are polluted by heavy metals, and more than 40 per cent have been damaged by erosion and desertification.
