Abstract

The potato (Solanum tuberosum) is the world’s fourth most important food crop after essential grains (wheat, maize, and rice) with over 365 million tons produced in 2012 (FAOSTAT 2014). Over half of this production was in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, where the potato is a major carbohydrate (starch) supplier in the diets of hundreds of millions of people (Bradshaw and Ramsay 2009). Potato production rates for countries are shown in Figure 25.1. The five largest potato producers are China (23.9%, 87.3 million tons), India (11.4%, 41.5 million tons), the Russian Federation (8.1%, 29.5 million tons), Ukraine (6.4%, 23.3 million tons), and finally the United States (5.7%, 21.0 million tons) (FAOSTAT 2014).