How to eat potatoes in the era of staple food

He Jianzhong, who has been growing potatoes all his life, suffered a rare drought this year. "there is basically no rain from planting to harvest, and the output is much lower than in previous years." He Jianzhong is a farmer in Dalu Village, Qinglan Township, Anding District, Dingxi City, Gansu Province. the poor harvest reminds Lao he of the favor that potatoes once brought to the people of Dingxi: "if you had encountered such a severe drought before, potatoes would have been life-saving food."

Not only potato farmers, after our country launched the potato staple food strategy in 2015, the role of potato as food has been concerned by more and more people in the country. A few days ago, potato staple food became the most important topic at the 2016 Dingxi Potato Conference co-sponsored by the Ministry of Agriculture and the Gansu Provincial Government.

"China's potato planting area and total output are about 84 million mu and 96 million tons, both of which rank first in the world." Zhang Hong, a researcher at the Institute of Agricultural products processing of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, analyzed that compared with the average processing rate of 50% of potatoes in developed countries, China's processing rate is about 7%, and has not found the focus to achieve great-leap-forward development of the industry.

Dingxi is the hometown of potatoes in China, with an annual planting area of more than 3 million mu, an annual output of about 5 million tons, an annual output of more than 1 billion virus-free original seeds, and a processing capacity of more than 700000 tons. At present, Dingxi has become the country's largest virus-free seed potato breeding base, an important commercial potato production base and potato product processing base. Therefore, the implementation of potato staple food strategy is particularly urgent for Dingxi, a big potato market.

"to promote the staple food of potatoes, it must be localized and made into steamed bread, noodles, snacks and other foods that people like to eat." Wang Yihang, a famous potato industry expert in Gansu, believes that many people still adhere to the traditional concept of diet and only regard potatoes as vegetables.

As the first batch of pilot provinces of potato staple food processing project in China, Gansu Province has fully implemented the potato staple food processing pilot project, which has comprehensively promoted the upgrading of the whole industry chain of potato and its products in Gansu Province.

"at present, remarkable achievements have been made in the development of potato staple food in Gansu, and many kinds of potato staple food products such as steamed bread, scones, steamed bread and nutritious drink have been gradually developed." Han Linguang, deputy director of Gansu Provincial Department of Agriculture and Animal Husbandry, said.

The reporter learned that at present, Dingxi has 12 potato staple food processing enterprises, with a processing capacity of more than 100000 tons. Located in the processing industrial zone of Dingxi Potato Circulation Park, Gansu Potato Xiangyuan Agricultural Science and Technology Co., Ltd. has introduced a complete set of Dutch potato flour processing equipment and potato raw material storage equipment. In the first phase, a production line of 10, 000 tons of potato powder and 12000 tons of potato raw materials have been built.

"on the basis of the existing potato flour production line, we have reached a research project of 'using potato powder to develop the industrial production of potato staple food' with the College of Food Science and Engineering of Gansu Agricultural University and other scientific research institutions inside and outside the province." Yang Xinjun, general manager of Potato Xiangyuan Agricultural Technology Co., Ltd., told reporters that the company will increase a total investment of 25.14 million yuan to build a potato food industrialization production line construction project, in order to enrich the variety of products, extend the industrial chain, and improve the level of industrialization management.

Han Linguang said that in the next few years, Gansu will also build a potato staple food and intensive processing base to form a processing value-added system, marketing system and virus-free seed potato supply system with reasonable layout, orderly competition, environment-friendly, processing enterprises and raw material bases.