Colorful potatoes are produced in Peru

Have you ever seen "colorful" potatoes? In Peru, in addition to the most common khaki potatoes, local farmers have grown colorful and grotesque potatoes, bringing the number of Peruvian potato varieties to 3500.

During the potato harvest season in the Andes, many local farmers are busy harvesting potatoes, which are no longer a single khaki, but are colorful: yellow, red, blue, purple, violet, pink with yellow spots, and so on. Potatoes of many colors are piled together and look like a colorful ocean. These potatoes are not only colorful, but also grotesque: round, long, twisted, hook like crutches and spirals like tops. The local farmers gave these potatoes vivid names, such as making their wives cry, old bones, black beauties, white deer noses, red shadows and so on.

The Aymara (one of the South American Indians), who have more than 650 villages in Peru, have always had a tradition of respecting the diversity of potatoes. The area where the Aymara people live is considered to be the best place for agronomists to cultivate and maintain crop diversity. The cold climate here avoids the damage caused by parasites to the growth of potatoes. During the annual harvest season, the Aymara people harvest more than 2000 different kinds of potatoes.

At present, Peru is a major potato producer in the world, and the International Potato Center, established in 1971, is also located in Lima, the capital of Peru. The centre aims to develop the possibility of growing potatoes and other tuber crops as an alternative to cereals on which humans mainly depend on the planet. Experts from the International Potato Center first planted more than 2000 kinds of virus-free potato seeds in the laboratory, and then took them to the plateau for farmers to plant. In this way, experts have successfully replanted some potato varieties that are on the verge of disappearing because of the virus, so that people can taste different tastes of potatoes again.