Potato world

World potato production, 1991-2007

	1991	1993	1995	1997	1999	2001	2003	2005	2007
Countries	million tons
Developed	201.87	219.70	195.62	192.49	182.90	184.00	177.43	176.33	176.24
Developing	93.54	112.38	119.60	141.88	148.97	160.84	167.67	176.38	182.33
WORLD	295.40	332.08	315.22	334.38	331.88	344.85	345.11	352.71	358.58
Source: FAOSTAT

The world potato sector is undergoing major changes. Until the early 1990s, most potatoes were grown and consumed in Europe, North America and countries of the former Soviet Union. Since then, there has been a dramatic increase in potato production and demand in Asia, Africa and Latin America, where output rose from around 30 million tons in the early 1960s to more than 180 million tons in 2007. FAO data show that in 2005, for the first time, the developing world's potato production exceeded that of the developed world. China is now the biggest potato producer, and almost a third of all potatoes is harvested in China and India.

Potato production, by region, 2007

	Harvested area	Quantity	Yield
	acres	tons	tons/acre
Africa	3 809 124	18 415 844	4.83
Asia/Oceania	21 579 616	151 395 474	7.01
Europe	18 467 736	143 547 343	7.77
Latin America	2 381 517	17 287 485	7.25
North America	1 521 867	27 938 416	18.35
WORLD	47 759 863	358 584 564	7.50
Source: FAOSTAT

Asia and Europe are the world's major potato producing regions, accounting for more than 80 percent of world production in 2007. While harvests in Africa and Latin America were far smaller, production was at or near record levels. North America was the clear leader in yields, at 18.3 tons per acre.

Potato consumption, by region, 2005

	Population	Consumption
		Total food (tons)	lbs per capita
Africa	904 388 000	13 857 155	30.6
Asia/Oceania	3 934 644 000	103 659 150	52.6
Europe	739 203 000	71 542 208	193.5
Latin America	562 270 000	12 829 801	45.6
North America	330 400 000	21 852 219	132.2
WORLD	6 484 792 000	223 740 535	69.0
Source: FAOSTAT

Asia consumes almost half of the world's potato supply, but it's huge population means that consumption per person was a modest 52 lbs in 2005. The heartiest potato eaters are Europeans. Per capita consumption is lowest, but increasing, in Africa and Latin America.

Top potato consumers, 2005

	Quantity (tons)		lbs per capita
1. China	52 463 617	1. Belarus	399
2. Russian Fed.	20 754 317	2. Kyrgyzstan	315
3. India	19 158 975	3. Ukraine	300
4. United States	18 855 035	4. Russian Fed.	289
5. Ukraine	7 033 683	5. Poland	289
6. United Kingdom	6 800 158	6. Rwanda	276
7. Germany	6 142 079	7. Lithuania	256
8. Poland	5 511 557	8. Latvia	251
9. Bangladesh	4 454 950	9. Kazakhstan	227
10. Iran (Islamic Rep.)	4 399 481	10. United Kingdom	225
Source: FAOSTAT