How to develop potato staple food quickly

"Two yuan a catty for new potatoes." This is the sales price of potatoes at several stalls in Baosheng Avenue, Yubei District, Chongqing City recently. Owner Huang said: "Now many people like to eat potatoes, the country also said to develop potatoes into staple food, estimated that business will be better in the future."

Potato is the third largest crop in Chongqing City, and it is also the main grain industry with the most development potential. The annual planting area is 5.5 million mu, ranking sixth in the country in terms of area and output. In 2015, Chongqing potato planting area was 5.582 million mu, with a total output of 6.672 million tons. Chongqing consumes about 170,000 tons of potatoes a year, according to data from Chongqing City's Agriculture Commission. Chongqing is also trying to turn potatoes into rice under the background of accelerating potato staple food throughout the country.

Potato is the "semi-annual grain" of reservoir area and mountain area, and also the pillar of regional economy.

Chongqing has 14 districts and counties with potato as the main industry, of which the reservoir area county accounts for half. Potatoes are commonly known locally as "semi-annual grain". Potato is also a pillar industry to ensure food security and develop regional economy in poor areas such as Qinba Mountain Area and Wuling Mountain Area.

Wushan County is a key county for potato production in Chongqing, with a perennial planting area of about 300,000 mu.

Qin Keshan, a villager of Daya Village in Luoping Town of the county, told reporters that in this black land with an altitude of 1200 meters, the villagers mainly plant a kind of potato named "rice potato". "We also planted two acres of land, some for ourselves and some for pigs. The big ones can be sold for more than 1000 yuan a year."

Since potato is the main crop in the county, the government of Wushan County has been committed to improving the economic value of potato. Last year, with the efforts of the local government, Daya Village established a professional cooperative, with Wushan County Fuyimei Agricultural Development Co., Ltd. as the leader for unified acquisition and unified marketing.

"After the establishment of the cooperative, no matter the size of potato, as long as you want to sell it, you can take it away after loading it. The income of potato on 2 mu of land has increased by more than 2,000 yuan on the original basis." Qin Keshan said happily.

Commercialization, staple food and other intensive processing technology lag to be broken through

In Wuxi County, the main potato producing area, potato perennial planting area of about 550,000 mu, yield more than 600,000 tons. The traditional potato seed here is to save a portion of the potato harvested last season, cut small pieces with bud eyes when sowing, and plant them in the ground. "This kind of seed is passed down from generation to generation. After seven or eight generations, it will degenerate." Wu Shiwan, former secretary of the Discipline Inspection Committee of Wuxi County, said that with degraded seeds, the final yield per mu should not exceed one thousand catties.

In order to ensure the stable yield of Wuxi potato, in the 1970s, some agricultural scientists took the initiative to tackle the problem of potato seed degradation. Through the use of virus-free potato seeds, the yield has been greatly improved, with the lowest yield of 1 ton per mu and the highest yield of more than 3 tons.

In 2008, Wuxi virus-free potato technology entered the virus-free potato seed project construction project of the Ministry of Agriculture.

Virus-free technology has changed the fate of Wuxi potato, potato has become Wuxi grain industry in the largest scale, the best benefit, the highest income of farmers. Fan Xingping, a villager from Bajia Village in Jianshan Town, said: "My family planted 2 mu of virus-free early-maturing potatoes and collected 4800 kilograms, of which 4300 kilograms were sold at 1.5 yuan per kilogram, earning 6450 yuan."

The government of Wuxi County has established a virus-free seed potato breeding and production base in Sanbao Village, Wenfeng Town. "At present, the annual output of the base is more than 40 million virus-free potato seeds, providing 1 million mu of virus-free potato seeds for this county, Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan and other places every year." Wu Shiwan told reporters.

Healthy planting is only the first step towards stable potato production. Xiong Shicai, head of potato planting base of Ruofeng Vegetable Planting Cooperative in Shuijiang Town, Nanchuan District, is busy recently."Every day, I have to go to the field to see it. It rained heavily some time ago. The late blight is too serious." Xiong Shicai said that if late blight is not effectively prevented, it may cause a 50% to 80% reduction in potato production.

According to the introduction of relevant responsible person of Chongqing City Agricultural Committee, the occurrence area of potato late blight in 2015 was 1.8285 million mu. Therefore, how to effectively prevent and control late blight is still a hurdle in the development of potato staple food.

In addition to late blight, potato production process also exists in a single variety, low rate of science and technology in place, storage level backward and other problems. In addition, the low mechanization level is also one of the factors affecting potato production in Chongqing. At present, there are only micro-tillers used for ploughing and ridging, and there are almost no small and medium-sized machines suitable for mountain use such as sowing, fertilizing and harvesting.

Growing potatoes also have "troubles". "At present, potato processing in Chongqing mainly focuses on starch and vermicelli, lacking staple food products suitable for popular consumption in this region, intensive processing technologies such as commercialization and staple food lag behind, and the added value of products is not high." Huang Zhenlin, director of Chongqing Comprehensive Experimental Station of National Potato Industry Technology System, said that the annual production capacity of potato starch processing in Chongqing City is about 65,000 tons, and there are only two ten thousand tons processing enterprises. The processing scale is small, and the driving force of enterprises to drive industrial development is not strong. According to the existing processing scale, Chongqing processes about 470,000 tons of fresh potatoes annually, accounting for only 7% of the output. This is a bottleneck that must be broken through.

Optimize production layout with processing as guidance, focus on developing diversified staple food products

About one third of cultivated land in Chongqing City is distributed in mountainous areas above 800 meters above sea level, potato is the ecological dominant crop in these areas. Therefore, how to overcome the problems in the process of production and sales and make potatoes "welcome spring" is a problem that Chongqing agricultural department is trying to explore.

In order to speed up the healthy development of potato industry in Chongqing, the Municipal Agricultural Committee optimizes the potato production layout according to different seasons and uses by integrating the resource endowment, industrial foundation and location advantages of each district and county. The main potato producing counties are mainly starch processing type, and some vegetable potatoes are also planted. In the central and western regions of Chongqing, potato is mainly vegetable type, reasonable utilization of temperature, light and water and soil resources, implementation of various forms of intercropping, intercropping and rotation, expansion of potato planting area in autumn and winter, and full exploitation of potato production potential in autumn and winter.

Potato deep processing is basically in blank state, low economic added value and short industrial chain, which are the problems that must be overcome in the development of potato staple food industry in Chongqing. Chongqing City agricultural committee related responsible person pointed out, To expand the processing field, Develop potato refined starch, Granular powder and French fries, Potato chips and puffed food, Instant potato products, Potato semi-finished products. At the same time, we should focus on the development of diversified potato staple food products with regional characteristics, different nutritional functions and suitable for different groups of people, innovate and develop noodles, potato cakes, steamed bread and other processed foods with fresh potato mashed as the main material, strive to achieve a processing rate of more than 20%, and realize potato staple food as soon as possible.

"Increasing the research and promotion of applicable technologies is particularly important for the development of potato industry." Huang Zhenlin suggested strengthening the monitoring and prevention of potato late blight, actively testing and demonstrating no-tillage and small-scale mechanized planting techniques, and vigorously promoting straw mulching and plastic film mulching techniques. "It is also necessary to carry out research on storage methods and storage techniques of seed potatoes, study small-scale storage (cellar) of seed potatoes and commercial potatoes suitable for mountainous areas of Chongqing, explore various ways such as shelf storage, stacking storage, bag storage, box storage, scattered light storage, etc., so as to improve the storage level of fresh potatoes."

Huang Zhenlin also suggested speeding up the certification of potato pollution-free agricultural products, green food and organic food, guiding township agricultural technicians, village cadres, large growers, science and technology demonstration households, etc. to form potato professional cooperatives, production and marketing intermediary organizations and brokers. Through unified material supply, technical guidance, information release, organization of production and sales and other services, improve the degree of potato production organization, guide enterprises to establish interest linkage mechanism with associations and potato farmers, and implement order production.

Potato staple food development is an innovative system engineering, involving production, processing, consumption and other links. The reporter participated in the "Potato Seed Potato International Forum" held in Zhaotong City, Yunnan Province, and deeply felt that potato staple food development must consolidate the industrial foundation.

First of all, we should lay a good agricultural foundation for potato standardization and large-scale production, so as to realize stable yield and yield of potato.

Some surveys show that the proportion of medium-and low-yield potato fields is large, and the scale of varieties is very low. Weak infrastructure, poor resilience to natural disasters and dependence on nature remain intact. Therefore, it is necessary to strengthen the agricultural infrastructure construction focusing on the transformation of medium and low yield fields.

Secondly, we should build a complete potato industry chain.

The significance of implementing potato staple food strategy lies in that fresh potato can be used as reserve grain after transformation. Fresh potato can only be stored for one year, while processed into whole flour and raw flour can be stored for more than 10 years. Traditional grains such as rice, corn and wheat can be stored for more than 3 years. Therefore, vigorously promoting deep processing of equipment is an inevitable choice for the development of potato industry.

Although Yunnan Province has natural advantages in developing potato industry, due to the underdeveloped secondary industry, too few enterprises enter potato processing, marketing and seed potato production, and the proportion of processing, export and seed potato is too low, the natural advantages have not been transformed into economic advantages. This is also an important factor restricting the development of potato staple food in many places. How to encourage processing enterprises to come in is the key to enhance the ability of brand creation and an important link to form a complete potato industry chain. Zhaotong City has strengthened cooperation with international potato center, Yunnan Normal University, Yunnan Province Academy of Agricultural Sciences and other scientific research institutions through internal introduction and external connection, and has established a cooperative research and development situation of production-learning-research integration oriented by complementary advantages and market demand.

Thirdly, we should improve the scientific and technological quality of farmers.

Potato is very sensitive to water and fertilizer, and diseases and insect pests are also serious. Intensive cultivation and pest control are needed to obtain high yield. In southwest China such as Yunnan, potato is mainly distributed in high altitude cold mountain areas, most of which are inhabited by ethnic minorities. It will take time to improve the extensive planting mode. Especially with the young and strong laborers going out to work, the quality of the team engaged in agricultural production needs to be improved.

At Zhaotong Potato Seed Potato International Forum, some experts suggested that colleges and universities should be combined to provide professional theoretical help for growers, promote the production mode of improved varieties and good methods, and try to let farmers obtain high-quality first-class seed potatoes. In addition, we should pay attention to the typical planting farmers, so that they can play a good leading role and set up a platform to strengthen communication among the masses. This should be valuable for potato production in Southwest China and even in the whole country.

To make potato industry bigger and better, it not only needs the correct guidance of local government with long-term vision, but also needs the joint efforts of growers, enterprises and research institutions. We should seize the opportunity of potato staple food development, give full play to regional advantages, so that potato can really drive the prosperity of one side's economy.