Potato Power: The Humble Tuber Helps Promote Food Security

Whether you enjoy rösti, kartosnik, gnocchi, latkes, or blinis, you are consuming a popular tuber otherwise known as the potato. This nutritious vegetable with more than 1,000 edible varieties has its origin in the Andes. It is there, the home of “Parque de la papa” (the Potato Park), that the International Potato Center maintains the world’s largest gene bank of potato germplasm from at least eight Latin American countries and 3,800 traditional Andean cultivated potatoes (www.potato2008.org).

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