Sweet Potato Production & Consumption = Major Global Impact!

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)