Productive restructuring of Colombian potato: actions to improve agricultural production!

 

Bogotá D. C., (@UpraColombia @claudialili76). Today, on World Potato Day, we want to highlight the work of Colombian peasants: the potato farmers who work the land and give us the best of their harvests to prepare our daily meals. 

 
"We are proud to have built, hand in hand with peasants, transformers, guilds, academia, national and regional institutions, the Productive Planning Plan (POP) for the potato and, in 2024, to be working with them again from the territory in the formulation of the Master Plan for Productive Restructuring (PMRP) of the Colombian potato chain; a strategy that proposes priority actions to overcome challenges in the chain and the territories where institutional efforts should be focused to improve the sustainability and performance of potato production in the long term," explained Claudia Liliana Cortés López, director of UPRA. 
 
Globally, with a production close to 370 million tons, potatoes rank third in importance as a food product (after rice and wheat); it reports more than 4,000 edible varieties, over 4,300 varieties of native potatoes, and 180 wild species, according to the International Potato Center. 
 
Likewise, Fidel Londoño Stipanovic, leader of the PMRPs of UPRA, expressed: "the PMRPs aim to specify, for each strategic territory of the chain, the initiatives proposed in the POPs at the national level. These plans are a participatory work built with those who want to improve their production, respecting knowledge, traditions, and successful experiences and incorporating new applied knowledge gradually, to build new techniques and paths on those already built. They are actions to improve agricultural production." 
 
Within the goals of the Plan, the first goal is to contribute to reducing gaps in the performance and sustainability of agricultural activities so that they can compete efficiently in domestic and international markets; sec​ond, establish guidelines to direct the institutional supply of the agricultural sector, to promote the transformations required by production systems and the territory; third, contribute to reducing land use conflicts within the agricultural frontier generated by the development of agricultural activities; and fourth, contribute to improving the supply and quality of agricultural products linked to the country's food security. 
 
Currently, "We are making progress in this technical exercise, which is carried out from, with, and for the territories of the departments of Santander and Norte de Santander, Antioquia, Boyacá, Cundinamarca, and Nariño, with whom we will soon start exercises to prioritize strategic actions. It is worth noting that in Colombia, 100,000 producers and peasants grow potatoes; 264,000 people work directly or indirectly with this chain, located in 280 municipalities with cold climates in 18 departments, along the three mountain ranges and the Colombian massif," emphasized Alexander Rodríguez, technical director of Soil Efficient Use and Land Adaptation at UPRA. 
 
Today we exalt the potato as the protagonist of delicious recipes on the continent, as a superfood, of high nutritional value, fundamental for the fight against hunger and for food security, which is socioculturally rooted in those who consume it daily and in those who cultivate it ancestrally and see in it the future of rural Colombia.

Key data on Colombian potatoes: 
 

• ​184,000 hectares are planted with this product in Colombia. 
   
• 100,000 producers and peasants cultivate it.
• 264,000 people work directly or indirectly with this chain; just over 75,000 were direct jobs and 189,000 were indirect.
• 280 municipalities in 18 departments with cold and very cold climates, along the three mountain ranges and the Colombian massif, have a presence of potatoes.
• Average yield of 20 tons per hectare.
• Apparent consumption of 2.6 million tons (fresh consumption 92-94% and industrial consumption 6-8%).
• The departments with the highest participation in national production are Cundinamarca (34.5%), Boyacá (27%), and Nariño (19.9%).
• Per capita annual apparent consumption was 55 kg in 2022.
• Potato production in Colombia occurs mainly in smallholder areas. 95% of producers plant less than three hectares and 80% less than one hectare.
• Potatoes account for 1.4% of the agricultural GDP.
• Colombia has 1.6 million hectares suitable for establishing potato crops; which corresponds to 4.3% of the national agricultural frontier.
• The potato chain is of great economic, social, and environmental importance in Colombia, as it is one of the main agricultural activities in cold climates and has a high demand for capital, labor, inputs, and land transportation.​