Scientific and technological innovation leads the diversification of staple foods to make people's meals more nutritious and healthier.

Scientific and technological innovation leads the diversification of staple foods to make people's meals more nutritious and healthier.

-- International Symposium on Potato staple Food products and Industrial Development held in Beijing

On July 29, the Ministry of Agriculture held an international seminar on potato staple food products and industrial development in Beijing. The meeting pointed out that in order to adapt to the new stage of building a well-off society in an all-round way, the new trend of upgrading the consumption structure of residents, and the new task of changing the mode of agricultural development, it is necessary to provide more nutritious and healthy food to the market, and potatoes are used as nutritious agricultural products. there are broad prospects for promoting the development of staple food products and industries.

The meeting pointed out that potato is the fourth largest food crop in the world after rice, wheat and corn, and it is also the fourth largest food crop in China. In 2014, China's planting area and output accounted for about 4% of the world's, and it has become the largest country in potato production and consumption. However, due to the influence of variety characteristics and market demand, the annual per capita consumption of potato in China is only 41.2 kg. Far lower than the level of Europe and the United States. The purpose of promoting the development of potato staple food is to develop more diversified staple food products, enrich people's dining tables and improve the dietary structure of residents. With the sustained and stable development of China's economy, the significant improvement of residents' living standards, and the improvement of potato staple food processing technology and equipment, the time is ripe and conditions are available to promote the development of potato staple food.

Closely centering on the theme of "green, safe, nutrition and health", the meeting put forward that the development of potato staple food should adhere to the concept of "nutrition guiding consumption and consumption guiding production", speed up the selection of a number of special varieties for staple food processing, speed up the construction of a number of high-quality raw material production bases, speed up the research and development of a number of staple food products and processing technology, and speed up support for a number of leading staple food processing enterprises. Efforts should be made to realize specialization of varieties, regionalization of planting, mechanization of production, industrialization of management, and staple food of products, promote the transformation of potatoes from non-staple food consumption to staple food consumption, from raw material products to industrial series of manufactured products, and from food and clothing consumption to nutrition and healthy consumption, thus forming a new pattern of coordinated development of potatoes and grains.

The meeting held that to promote the development of potato staple food products and industries, it is necessary to achieve the "five principles", that is, not to compete for water and land with the three major grains, to unify production development and overall promotion, and to give consideration to both staple food development and comprehensive utilization. We should adhere to the combination of government guidance and market regulation, and coordinate overall planning with key breakthroughs. In terms of work measures, we should strengthen top-level design, do a good job in planning and guidance, strengthen the overall layout, do a good job of echelon promotion, strengthen scientific research, break through technical bottlenecks, strengthen policy support, extend the industrial chain, strengthen public opinion, and guide healthy consumption.

Ms. Wei Bina, Director of the International Potato Center, was invited to attend the seminar and delivered a speech. Nearly 1000 experts, scholars, enterprise representatives and managers from domestic and foreign potato production, scientific research, processing and marketing attended the meeting.