Brazil
batata inglesa
Year2007
Production
3 720 360 tons
Harvested area
351 696 acres
Yield
10.5 tons/acre
Brazil is the centre of origin of the world's premier root crop, cassava. Yet cultivation of potatoes was virtually unknown until the late 1800s, when European immigrants introduced the tuber to relatively temperate areas of southern Brazil (in the state of São Paulo, potato can be grown and harvested almost every month of the year).
While the potato, known locally as batata inglesa, is still a minor crop for Brazilian agriculture, the country ranks as Latin America's second biggest potato producer, with production of more than 3.7 million tons in 2007. Over the past 15 years, the country's potato output has grown by an average of five percent a year, with average yields increasing from 6.2 tons to 10.5 tons per acre.
Although few of Brazil's potatoes are exported, annual consumption is still a low 30 lb per capita. But that is expected to change: as one of the world's emerging economic giants, Brazil is considered a prize market for processed potato snacks.
Further details from CIP's World Potato Atlas