The potato is a relative newcomer among the world's major food crops for it dates
from the Spanish conquest in South America and subsequent introduction into the
northern latitudes. In the ensuing 400 years the nutritional, social, and economic impacts
of this interesting and important crop plant have been dramatic. In the years ahead,
as mankind seeks to balance the food/resource/population equation, the potato seems
destined to play an even more vital role for the following reasons:
• The potato plant is uniquely effective at converting and partitioning carbon into
usable forms, potentially producing more food value per unit time, land, and
water than any other major crop.
• Although average potato yields are high (10 to 70 tons per hectare), they still
fall manyfold below demonstrated achievable yields.
• The potato genus has resistance to limiting environmental stresses and is widely
adapted to divergent environments, but only a small fraction of the total germ
plasm resource has been exploited by plant breeders in developing cultivars.
• The potato tuber is not simply a hydrated package of starch, but also provides
the best balanced dietary combination of calories and proteins, including all
essential amino acids, of any major food crop.
• There are promising new technologies for lowering the cost, improving the quality,
and eliminating tuber-borne diseases from potato planting stock—including tissue
culture explant and true-seed systems of planting and production.