What's the difference between eating potatoes as a staple?

There are not only staple food products such as potato steamed bread, noodles, bread and pancakes, but also "thought-inspired" snacks such as milk tea, French fries, ice cream, raw squeezed purple potato juice, not only potato tubers of different colors and sizes, such as white, pink, purple, but also different forms and brands of deep processed products such as potato vinegar, beverages, instant hot and dry noodles. From July 28 to 29, Yanqing, Beijing, the site of the China International Potato Industry Expo, 196 exhibitors from 11 countries and regions brought hundreds of varieties of potato, potato processed food and related plant protection, water and fertilizer, agricultural machinery and other products.

Related enterprises from seed potatoes to processing are gearing up, and the development of potato staple food is really coming.

Change the way of thinking: from non-staple food to staple food, open the door to the market

Fried shredded potatoes, stewed potatoes, roasted potato eggs, for a long time, the consumption of potatoes in China is mainly fresh vegetables, fresh food consumption accounts for 65% of the total consumption.

Due to the single mode of consumption, although China has leapt to the top of potato production and consumption, accounting for about 1% of the world's acreage and output, the per capita annual consumption is only 41.2 kg, which is only equivalent to 37% of the per capita consumption level in Russia, 58.3% in Germany and 74.1% in the United States.

"the potato industry has achieved sustainable development in the past 10 years, but the planting area and total output have been hovering around 80 million mu and 90 million tons for a long time, and the focal point for realizing the leapfrog development of the industry has not been found." Wang Xiaohu, director of the Food and Nutrition Development Research Institute of the Ministry of Agriculture, believes that the main bottleneck of industrial development is the limited space for consumption growth. "whether it is consumption of fresh vegetables, starch processing, feed raw materials, or leisure products such as mashed potatoes and potato chips, it is only the growth and decline within the structure, which cannot create new growth space for potato consumption."

With the rapid development of production and limited consumption space, the result of the "meeting" between the two is that prices rise and fall greatly. After the price of potato jumped from the lowest to the highest from 2011 to 2013, the price in most producing areas was depressed in 2014, and the price fluctuation led to the instability of farmers' planting income and frustration of farmers' enthusiasm.

From non-staple food consumption to staple food consumption, the change of development thinking is like Alibaba's "sesame open door", which will greatly broaden the space for the development of potatoes. It is estimated that the annual consumption of staple grain in China is about 150 million tons. If potatoes account for 10% of the total consumption of staple food, it will increase the consumption of fresh potatoes by more than 100 million tons every year, which is equal to the total annual output at present.

Change varieties: from variety to product, innovative value chain

During the Expo, Kui Changwu, Deputy Secretary-General of China National Chef Cooking Culture Center, showed the guests the N possibilities of potato staple food in the staple food kitchen. "Home staple foods such as steamed buns, dumplings, hanging noodles, bread and pancakes can be made, and they don't need special craftsmanship." He told reporters that potatoes are known as "underground apples" and are rich in vitamins, protein and dietary fiber. Adding them to flour can make traditional staple foods more comprehensive and nutritious.

The door to staple food development is slowly opening, but if you think potatoes can be made into steamed buns and noodles, you are still a little too optimistic-not all potato varieties can be used as staples, of course, just bake a potato. To make a staple food, the first step is to process the potatoes into whole flour.

"whole flour has relatively strict requirements on potato varieties. Although all potatoes can be made into whole flour, there will be great differences in color and taste." Liu Yongxiang, deputy director of the Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Bureau of Wulanchabu City, Inner Mongolia, said that at present, "Atlantic" and "Charlotte", which produce all powder, are varieties introduced from abroad.

"the staple food development strategy has brought unprecedented benefits to the potato industry, but it is also facing great challenges. The first challenge is the lack of varieties. " Li Guangcun, a researcher at the Institute of vegetables and Flowers of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, believes that different staple food products have different requirements for potato varieties. For example, making steamed bread and noodles requires highly malleable varieties, while making rice noodles is not. Therefore, it is the key to promote the development of potato staple food products and industries and cultivate more special varieties suitable for processing different staple food products of different ecological types.

It is understood that on the basis of investigating the staple food development characters of 22 major varieties in China, the processing Institute of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences has selected special varieties suitable for processing steamed bread, such as "Qingshu 9" and "Dianhong". The established national potato germplasm bank of nearly 2000 germplasm will provide rich genetic resources for breeding special varieties for staple food processing.