FAO Director General Qu Dongyu told the World Potato Conference that the global potato crop could double over the next decade to take a larger role in feeding the planet. He said this is necessary because grain yield improvements are starting to peak. He might have been speaking to the hopes and aspirations of his audience but there are notable advantages to potatoes. Calorically, wheat, rice and potatoes are similar. Wheat is the clear winner in delivering protein and fiber, whereas potatoes have the edge on vitamins and nutrients. Depending on the potato, it may have more glycemic impact. Potatoes clearly win the weight yield per hectare but may have more agronomic limitations than certainly wheat. The yield ceiling has been mentioned fo...
Communicating importance of value-added products
Facing increasing pressure to quantify the value of export promotion efforts to investors, a U.S. industry organization retained WPI to develop a quantitative model that better communicated the importance of exports. The resulting model concluded that value-added meat exports contributed $0.45 cents per bushel to the price of corn, increasing support for that sector’s financial support of WPI’s client. In addition to serving the red meat industry with this type of analysis, WPI has generated similar deliverables for the U.S. soybean and poultry/egg industries.