Preserving Potatoes More Important than Age-Old Dispute

Policies to get small farmers involved in saving, preserving, producing, marketing and genetically improving potatoes should take precedence over the age-old dispute between Chile and Peru about where potatoes originated, experts from both countries say.

"The potato (Solanum tuberosum) originated in the Americas,"Juan Izquierdo, with the regional office of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), told IPS, in an attempt to rise above the Chilean-Peruvian dispute which has flared up in this International Year of the Potato (IYP).