介绍:
JN: China is planning to further boost potato production to make it a staple of the nation’s diet.
BK: So, first of all, what exactly is behind the government’s decision. Why make potatoes a staple food?
ZHZ: I think it’s the need, out of food basket concerns and also it’s part of the country’s effort to ensure the long term sustainability of China’s agricultural sector, because potato yield is much higher than that of cereal, rice and corn, and wheat, so promoting the production of staple food contributes to the official premise of absolute self-sufficiency in staple.
BK: Well talking about the amount of food available, a year ago the agricultural ministry denied the idea that the decision was made due to food shortage. How accurate is that statement?
TY: That’s – accurate statement to a certain extent. It’s not due to the food shortages at the present, but it is also concerns the long-term food shortages [in] China. Right now, China does not have any food shortage problems, but the challenges will be how to ensure self-sufficiency in stables in about ten or twenty years’ time given the rising demand and the shrinking land and water resources. So, the decision made last year was to prepare China for the future food shortages, and also to address the problems of these green land and water pollutions, and also water shortages in China’s north and west provinces.
TY: Then why hasn’t the potato become a staple in China since it was first planted in the country four hundred years ago, it’s the Ming Dynasty?
ZHZ: I think the reason is quite simple. It’s because China has a long tradition of eating rice and bread, which is inside Chinese culture or in China culture, and potato was always considered eating products from western countries, so it’s very difficult to change the consumption habits of the Chinese people, even over four hundred years, and it also points to this problem right now how can we persuade Chinese consumers to consume potato if we haven’t done that in the past four hundred years.
TY: And, in China, potatoes used to be associated with poverty, so how easy do you think the task would be for authorities, say if you’re the one to convince persons like me to eat potato as some staple food, what would you do?
ZHZ: Of course, as we’ve said, it’s very challenging, but there are approaches to do that, for instance, nowadays people are more and more concerned with, you know, a healthy, balanced, nutritional diet, with Chinese consumers consuming more and more meat, and they are worried about poor weight and problems with obesity, so they want to consume more vegetables. Potato, even though we can’t persuade the consumer to consume potato-made steamed rice - noodles or steamed bread, one possibility is that we can convince the consumer to consume more potatoes and vegetables. It’s much healthier.
