Worldwide Sustainability Hotspots in Potato Cultivation. 1. Identification and Mapping

Abstract

Potato and its derivatives increasingly become globally traded products. Commercial companies more and more want to quantify the environmental footprints such as the efficiency of the use of land and water, greenhouse gas emissions, and the risks of eutrophication and contamination of the environment with pesticides. From various sources, global maps with grid cells of circa 8,600 ha (near the equator) were drawn representing potatoharvested area, potato fresh tuber yield (land use efficiency), slopes (risks of erosion), precipi-tation deficit (risks of depletion of fresh water resources through irrigation), and average daily maximum temperature throughout the season (risks of occurrence of pest epidemics and emission of pesticides). Hotspots for erosion are the slopes of the mountains in the Andes, African Rift, Southern China and volcanic areas in southern China, and the island countries in Southeast Asia. Fresh water availability may become limited in the East of North America, northern India, and China. Risks of insects are increased in continental hot summer climates and short spring crops with high temperatures towards harvest. Late blight is a threat in all humid areas such as maritime Europe, equatorial tropical highlands, and the humid western Pacific Ring. The examples discussed in this paper can be elaborated for more soil and weather-related factors such as acidity and salinity and heat waves or torrential rains. Sustainable long-term and long-range sourcing is deliberated as well as repercussions of trends such as globalization and climate change; the latter being relative favorable for the root and tuber crop potato compared to grain crops.

Worldwide Sustainability Hotspots in Potato Cultivation. 2. Areas with Improvement Opportunities

“…The potential hotspot "Depletion of water reserves" is shown in Haverkort et al (2014), Fig. 4 where negative values indicate precipitation deficit.…”

“…potato yield, occurrence of steep slopes and precipitation deficit and high growing season temperatures (Haverkort et al 2014). Additionally, nitrogen surplus, emission of greenhouse gases (GHG, expressed as CO 2 -eq) per ton of fresh potato yield, and late blight risk were considered and the potential impact of potato cultivation on biodiversity was recognized.…”

“…The amount of irrigation has been estimated by taking the precipitation deficit per grid cell (negative values in Haverkort et al (2014) , Fig. 4) if this grid cell contains irrigation equipment according to a global map of irrigation areas (Siebert et al 2005(Siebert et al , 2007.…”

“…In the first paper of this series, a practical method to identify biophysical hotspot areas on a global scale was developed and implemented for potatoes (Haverkort et al 2014). No effort was made to define indicator thresholds to identify areas where improvement opportunities exist that can be targeted by bodies such as TSC.…”

“…Thus, the objective of the current paper is to discuss indicators and threshold values in order to identify geo-referenced improvement opportunities in potato production on a global scale. In addition to the indicators of Haverkort et al (2014), we calculate carbon footprint and impact on biodiversity in order to provide a more complete analysis of environmental impacts.…”