Can Potatoes Feed the World?

by John E. Bradshaw

Overview

By 2050 the United Nations (UN) predicts a world population of 9.7 billion compared with 8 billion in 2022. Increases in food and energy production and the supply of fresh water will be needed to sustain this population, whilst reducing greenhouse gas emissions to limit global warming. The average global temperature is likely to be 2 to 3 degrees Celsius above that in pre-industrial times, unless there is a greater sense of urgency following the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow in 2021, which still wanted to limit the rise to 1.5 degrees. There is also increasing concern about the loss of biodiversity on Earth from human activity, including farming, as seen in the outcomes of the UN Biodiversity Conference (COP15) in Montreal in 2022. More encouragingly, on 1 December 2023, 134 countries at COP28 in Dubai endorsed the landmark sustainable agriculture, resilient food systems and climate action declaration which put food systems transformation on the global climate agenda. “While food systems are vital for meeting societal needs and enabling adaptation to climate impacts, they are also responsible for as much as a third of global greenhouse gas emissions.” A warmer climate and loss of biodiversity will make life more difficult for humankind; but can potatoes at least help with food security? It is a scientific and technological question set in a political, economic and societal context. It has arisen because potatoes have made the journey from wild species to global food crop. The contribution of the potato to the United Nations Millennium Development Goals of providing food security and eradicating poverty was recognized when an International Year of the Potato 2008 (IYP 2008) was officially launched at the United Nations (UN) headquarters in New York on 18 October 2007 by the Director-General of FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations).

Today the importance of potatoes can be seen in the context of the United Nations “2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development” which was adopted in 2015 and started on 1 January 2016. The agenda has 17 goals, the second of which (SDG2) is to end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture. By 2030, the aim of the agenda is to ‘ensure access by all people, in particular the poor and people in vulnerable situations, including infants, to safe, nutritious and sufficient food all year round’. However, the projection in the 2023 Sustainable Development Goals Report was not zero-hunger but 600 million people still facing hunger. Hence a greater sense of urgency is required and also a need to look beyond 2030 to 2050. This book explores how potatoes can contribute to SDG2 by increasing potato production and improving the nutritional value of potatoes, in particular to alleviate micronutrient deficiencies (‘hidden hunger’), having first explained how potatoes became a major food crop and the lessons to be learnt from a major crop failure and resulting famine.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783031928895
Publisher:	Springer Nature Switzerland
Publication date:	08/01/2025
Series:	Sustainable Development Goals Series
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	7.01(w) x 10.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Dr John E. Bradshaw spent his 34-year career (1975-2009) as a plant breeder and geneticist at what is now the James Hutton Institute in Dundee, Scotland; having studied genetics and applied genetics in England at the Universities of Cambridge (BA), Birmingham (MSc) and East Anglia (PhD). He worked on barley, brassicas (kale, swedes and turnips) and potatoes; doing research on the applications of genetics to plant breeding as well as breeding finished cultivars. In potatoes he was particularly interested in the theory and practice of quantitative trait locus analysis in tetraploid potatoes and breeding for quantitative resistance to diseases and pests (late blight and cyst nematodes). He has written extensively on plant breeding and genetics, including two books, one on Plant Breeding: Past, Present and Future (Springer Nature, 2016) and the other on Potato Breeding: Theory and Practice (Springer Nature, 2021). He has also co-edited books on Potato Genetics (1994), Potato Biology and Biotechnology (2007) and Approaches for Potato Crop Improvement and Stress Management (2024), and edited one on Root and Tuber Crops (2010). He has been an Honorary Fellow of the Indian Potato Association since 2008. In 2010 he received the British Potato Industry Award in recognition of his contribution to potato research and knowledge transfer. Throughout his career he was a member of EUCARPIA, the European Association for Research on Plant Breeding, and having served as Chairperson of the Section Potatoes from 2000 to 2009 was made an honorary member in May 2012. He is a member of the Genetical Society of Great Britain and served on the Editorial Board of their journal Heredity as Plant Breeding Subject Editor from 2010 to 2017. He is a member of EAPR, the European Association for Potato Research, and served as Co-ordinating Editor of their journal Potato Research from December 2017 to December 2021.

Table of Contents

Let Them Eat Potatoes.- Wild Relatives.- Domestication and Cultivation in South America.- South America to the World.- Late Blight, Crop Failure and Famine.- Seed Certification, True Potato Seed and Disease-Free Planting Material.- Farming, Potential Yields and Increased Production.- Improved Nutritional Value.- Conventional Breeding.- DNA, Gene Editing and Genetic Transformation.- Conclusions.