POTATOES AS WORLD FOOD.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 14688, 21 August 1918, Page 6

POTATOES AS WORLD FOOD.

>«__. FUTURE POSSIBILITIES. Tlie future of the potato as a possible .world food appears likely to be a big ! one. Heretofore potatoes have been looked upon as a perishable article and therefore not suited for shipment over long distances. One of the lessons taught by the war is that potatoes can be treated so that they occupy less space, may be kept indefinitely,, and still retain their value as a food. Quite recently a lecture, was delivered upon this subject before a class in economies in New York, to demonstrate the value of t/he potato as a world food. Tlie lecturer pointed out that the war had shown it was practicable to so preserve the potato by grinding and drying that it was transferred from' the list of local and perishable crops to one -which might be produced in almost unlimited quantities in certain areas, and distributed to any part of the world. The world's crop of potatoes was given as six billion bushels. Tlie new system of turning tlie potato into a condition in which it can readily be distributed quite naturally developed in Germany, the country that had the largest production of that tuber in tho world. Factories were established for making potato flour for man, calces and cubes for animals, or alcohol foi- chemical industries, or a substitute for petrol. Ten .years ago there were a few dozen such factories in Germany. In 1914 the number increased to 400, and in 1916 to 840, . with a capacity for dealing with one billion bushel of potatoes' per annum. The reduction in weight' is about 60 per cent, by the drying process, and then the product can be preserved almost indefinitely. Gcrmhny produces about two billion bushels of potatoes annually out of the world total of six billion bushels.