News Release
June 15, 2000

UNDERGROUND SOLUTIONS:
Experts Say Cassava, Potato, Sweetpotato, and Yam Can Help the Poor in Developing Countries

WASHINGTON, D.C., June 15, 2000-The increased use of major roots and tubers-cassava, potato, sweetpotato, and yam-for food and livestock feed in developing countries will have wide-ranging effects on global public- and private-sector policies and investments, according to a report released last week by the Washington, D.C.-based International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and the Peruvian-based International Potato Center (known worldwide by its Spanish acronym, CIP). Using 1993 to 2020 as a timeline, the 2020 Vision discussion paper Roots and Tubers for the 21st Century: Trends, Projections, and Policy Options, highlights several projections for policymakers to respond to, including a 60 percent increase in use of sweetpotato as livestock feed in China, a virtual doubling in consumption of cassava in Sub-Saharan Africa, and a surge in popularity of potato in Latin America as a result of the emerging fast-food market.

As discussed in this jointly published report by CIP’s Gregory Scott and IFPRI’s Mark Rosegrant and Claudia Ringler, roots and tubers will continue to play a significant role in developing-country food systems because they:

• contribute to the energy and nutrition requirements of more than 2 billion people,
• are produced and consumed by many of the world’s poorest households,
• are an important source of employment and income in rural, and often marginal, areas, especially for women, and
• adapt to a wide range of uses, from food-security crops to cash crops, raw material for industrial uses, and from fresh to high-end processed products.

The authors project that the total use of roots and tubers in developing countries will increase by 232 million tons to 635 million tons between 1993 and 2020, a 58 percent increase. Cassava’s share of the increase will be 44 percent, potato’s 29 percent, and sweetpotato and yam’s 27 percent.

In China, while human consumption of sweetpotato (and yam) is forecast to decrease from 53 million tons to 40 million tons by 2020, its use as animal feed will increase by more than 60 percent to 80 million tons. The authors say much of this explosive demand for meat and animal feed has already taken place mostly in the 1990s in the feed-deficit, inland sweetpotato production centers. At the same time, improved small-scale processing of sweetpotato roots in China has boosted production by making household village-level processing less onerous and more profitable. In Sub-Saharan Africa, continued high rates of population growth and urbanization, combined with comparatively low levels of per capita income and limited economic growth, will nearly double cassava consumption to 168 million tons by 2020, particularly as a food product in urban markets.

Although the increase in total roots and tubers demand in Latin America is projected to be dominated by cassava (13 million tons, used primarily for feed) the surge in consumption of potato­-with an increase of 7 million tons, or 35 percent of the total increase in roots and tubers demand-runs a close second. Population and income growth combined with high levels of urbanization have boosted intake of processed potatoes in several countries. Since 1987, the number of McDonalds restaurants has increased more than tenfold in Latin America-mostly in Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico-where the golden arches are now serving processed potato (French fries) at over 1,200 locations.

Scott, Rosegrant, and Ringler argue the increased demand of roots and tubers as food and particularly as feed in the developing world will need to be addressed. Policymakers in developing countries could eliminate overvalued exchange rates, subsidies on imported substitutes, and policy distortions that promote the improper use of pesticides and fertilizers on roots and tubers. Policymakers in developed countries could eliminate subsidies on exports of food products that compete with roots and tubers and facilitate technology transfer.

In the final analysis, the authors stress two primary “underground solutions” for promoting roots and tubers in the marketplace: removing policy distortions that bias market signals in favor of other agricultural commodities, and lifting trade restrictions on imports from developing countries.

Roots and Tubers for the 21st Century: Trends, Projections, and Policy Options can be downloaded at: www.ifpri.cgiar.org/pubs/catalog.htm#dp.

IFPRI is a Future Harvest center and receives its principal funding from 58 governments, private foundations, and international and regional organizations known as the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research. Based in Washington, D.C., IFPRI was established in 1975 to identify and analyze policies for meeting the food needs of the developing world. IFPRI conducts research on ways to achieve sustainable food production and optimize land use, improve food consumption and income levels of the poor, enhance the efficiency of markets and links between agriculture and other sectors of the economy, and improve trade and macroeconomic conditions.

CIP, located in La Molina, Peru, is also a Future Harvest Center. It sees the potato and other Andean root and tuber crops as underexploited resources for agricultural development and hunger relief in developing countries. Founded in 1971, CIP has worked to enhance the cultivation, yield, processing, and consumption of potatoes. Its original mandate was expanded to include sweetpotato and, more recently, other Andean roots and tubers that are in danger of extinction. In a broader vein, CIP is now looking at natural resource management in the Andean ecoregion.

IFPRI's 2020 Vision for Food, Agriculture, and the Environment was launched in 1993 to develop and promote a vision and an action plan for eradicating hunger and malnutrition while protecting the environment. This initiative brings together researchers, policymakers, and leaders in civil society, private sector, and media to examine the challenges to and solutions for meeting the world's food needs sustainably.