PERU:FOOD SCIENTISTS are meeting in Cusco, Peru, this week to find ways of boosting world potato production to ease the strain of surging cereal prices on the world's poorest countries.
Potato production already reached a record high last year as cereal prices rose, partly as a consequence of grain producers - such as the US - switching to bio-fuel crops. The impact of more expensive cereals has been harshest on developing countries that are dependent on imports.
Grain shortages have led to unrest in some parts of Africa and have also prompted food riots in Egypt, in which at least two people have been killed.
The Cusco conference, which is sponsored by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation and the Peruvian-based International Potato Centre, aims to expand the role of a crop that scientists say produces more food on less land than maize, wheat or rice.
Developing countries now produce half the world's production, which stands at 320 million tonnes, and in regions such as Asia potatoes are already substituting for more traditional crops. China is now the world's largest producer.
The scientists at Cusco, meeting in what the UN has designated the International Year of the Potato, are studying improvements in quality and sustainable farming. They are looking at developing strains that require less water and can resist pests, as well as the impact of climate change.
Some governments have already begun substituting potatoes for grain as a result of rising cereal prices.
In Peru, the native crop has been used this year to replace wheat in bread production for the armed forces, schools and prisons.
In Bangladesh, a bumper crop has led the government to include potatoes in basic rations to the poor.
While potato prices have risen in some parts of the world and tracked the rise of cereals, in other regions gluts in production have generated a slump. In West Bengal, Indian farmers are reported to have attempted suicide after facing ruin because prices fell below production costs.