Hey, you gave me the wrong stuff; I ordered a rice dish, not this MSM filler.
"China turns to potatoes for food security; Hopes vegetable can help alleviate country’s poverty" by Lauren Keane, Washington Post | June 18, 2010
Yeah, I thought I smelled s***.
JIUTIAOLONG, China — In the land of rice, China is looking at an unlikely tool for maintaining growth and social harmony: the potato.
The Chinese government has begun ramping up research, production, and training related to the humble spud, and hopes are high that it could help alleviate poverty and serve as a bulwark against famine.
Anyone ever tell them about the IRISH POTATO FAMINE?
The challenge of feeding a growing nation on a shrinking supply of arable land while confronting severe water shortages has long been a major concern here.
As it would be anywhere, right, WaPo?
I mean, that is why ISRAEL is doing what it does!!!!
China has to feed one-fifth of the world’s population on one-tenth of its arable land, and the nation’s expanding cities are consuming farmland at breakneck speed....
Yeah, GOOD THING that isn't happening to YOU, AmeriKa!!
That statistical reality could change eating habits. Potatoes need less water than rice or wheat, and they yield far more calories per acre. In regions of southern China, farmers can squeeze a round of fast-growing potatoes into their rice fields between planting seasons. In some of the poorest parts of arid northern China, potatoes are among the few crops that grow.
“Potatoes have so much potential here,’’ said Xie Kaiyun, a leading potato scientist at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, a government think tank.
“Rice, wheat, corn — we’ve gone about as far as we can go with them. But not the potato.’’
Ever keen to seize opportunity, Chinese entrepreneurs are turning potatoes into forms more familiar to Chinese palates: buns, noodles, cakes. They are developing exotic varieties and have even sent seeds into orbit, saying that zero gravity makes them more nutritious and charging astronomical premiums for the seeds’ offspring back on Earth.
Potatoes won’t replace rice or wheat as mainstays of Chinese cuisine anytime soon, if ever. They are eaten as side dishes, and the government has not yet named them a staple, a distinction that would mean preferential treatment in domestic markets and would carry significant cultural weight.
But they are increasingly seen here as an underutilized resource.
China produces and consumes more potatoes than any other country. But that’s largely because of its huge population. The Chinese lag in per capita terms, eating one-third the amount of potatoes that Russians do and two-thirds the amount Americans eat.
The average acre of potato plants in China yields far fewer edible spuds than in other developing countries, mostly because farmers plant cheap, disease-prone seed. China’s national and local governments are trying to change that by increasing potato funding, hoping the investments will raise rural incomes and help maintain social stability by keeping farmers on their land in the country’s poorest areas....
It’s a good time to be in the Chinese potato business....
As good as it is to be in the BANKING or WAR-PROFITEERING BUSINESS?
--more--"As with any Chinese meal, I'm still hungry.
Oh, right, fortune cookie:
"While China imposes the death penalty for a wide range of crimes, it was almost certain to be applied in Chen’s case to assuage popular anger and avert potential social unrest."
Also see: Chinese Classroom
Gee, what is it with the authoritarian government being worried about social unrest?
Doesn't make sense unless you CONSIDER the LYING SOURCE!!
Related:
"Something many of my expat friends in China are always talking about. They say they find it ridiculous that China is viewed as this incredibly oppressive place where the government is spying on you all the time and concerned with your littlest actions. They oftentimes like to tell me that China actually has more freedoms than the United States or England"
You full up on your MSM lunch, 'murka.
