Worldwide sweet potato production and consumption is huge!
Sweet potatoes have a major global impact. All around the world people eat and use this superfood, its plant leaves and roots.
With a vast variety of uses, they are among the world's most important food crops. (Learn how sweet potatoes are being used to produce the bio-based fuel Ethanol.)
Consider the following:
* Every year more than 130,000,000 tons (that's 260,000,000,000 pounds) are produced around the world. Production numbers are estimated for developing countries where reporting from rural farms can be inconsistent.
* Ranks among the 5 most important food crops in over 50 developing countries (along with rice, wheat, maize, and cassava)
* Ranks among the world's 7 most important food crops(along with wheat, rice, maize, potato, barley, and cassava)
* Cultivated in over 100 developing countries
* Over 95% of the global crop is produced in developing countries
* Mostly produced in Asia (over 120,000,000 tons every year)
* China accounts for about 90% of worldwide sweet potato production
* Asia's crop is used primarily for both animal feed and human consumption
* Yearly, China uses over 60,000,000,000 pounds of plant leaves as feed for pig stocks
* Africa's crop (believed to be about 14,000,000,000 pounds yearly - estimated due to the number of small rural farms that do not report production) is used primarily for human consumption
* Latin America, the sweet potato's original home, produces about 4,000,000,000 pounds yearly
* North America produces about 1,200,000,000 pounds yearly
* Portugal, Europe's only country that grows sizeable quantities of sweet potato, produces about 45,000,000 pounds yearly
* Typically a small-farmer crop
* Often used to improve incomes and food security among the poorer segments of a rural population
* Farm households make processed foods (starch, noodles, candy, desserts, flour); this diversifies the use and increases the crop's value
* Sweet potato consumption varies within countries: by regions, by time of year and by income group
* Grows well in many farming conditions including poor soils
Click here to learn more about the International Potato Center - (CIP)
Worldwide Names for Sweet Potatoes
Albanian: Patate te embel
BURMESE: Myonk ni
CHINESE: Fan shu (Faan syu), Bai shu, Gan shu (kan chou)
DANISH: Sød kartoffel, Batat
DUTCH: Zoete aardappel, Bataat
ENGLISH: Sweet potato (USA), Sweetpotato, Yam (USA), Kumara (NZ)
FRENCH: Patate douce
GERMAN: Süßkartoffel, Suesskartoffel, Batate
ITALIAN: Patata dolce
JAPANESE: Satsuma imo, Ryuukyuu imo, Kara imo, Kan sho, Yamiamo, Murasaki imo
KOREAN: Ko gu ma
LAOTIAN: Man kè:w
MALAY: Ubi jalar (Indonesia)
NORWEGIAN: Søtpoteter
PAPUA NEW GUINEA: Kau Kau
PORTUGUESE: Batata doce, Batata da ilha (Brazil)
SPANISH: Batata, Boniato, Camote (Latin America), Cumala huasca, Cumal huasca, Cumara, Curiti, Jarissi jabo, Kamote (Philippines)
SUNDANESE: Huwi boled
THAI: Man thet
VIETNAMESE: Khoai lang, Khoai mon
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