Winter potatoes are grown in rice fields in China

China accounts for 19% of the world's population and only 9% of arable land. The country has long sought to improve food production, and in recent decades the potato has played an increasingly important role in this endeavor. As farmland is being lost to urbanization and soil degradation threatens crop yields, growing potatoes in southern China's rice paddies in the fallow winter has the potential to improve food security and farmers' incomes, according to potatonewstoday.com A recent article published by a group of CIP scientists in the American Journal of Potato Research shows that the use of potatoes in rice production in southern China could benefit smallholder farmers. According to Lao Yu, a researcher at the China Institute of High-Latitude Crops, the rotation of rice and potato crops in paddy fields brings both economic and environmental benefits. "Rice and potato crop rotation systems play an important role in reducing poverty in China's rural areas and in promoting ...