Chinese university canteens get “poverty relief potatoes”
Apart from book donations and volunteer teachers, Chinese college students now have a new option of supporting China’s poorer regions — by gobbling down their potatoes.
Northwest China’s Gansu Province said they supplied 1,000 tonnes of “poverty relief potatoes” to canteens of a number of Chinese universities in a new poverty reduction campaign that started this year.
The universities bought potatoes directly from farmers in Dingxi, a city known for using potato farming to alleviate its grinding poverty, according to the province’s department of education.
By leaving out middle dealers, the farmer-canteen deals ensured a decent price for potato growers and helped support the livelihood of nearly 800 farmers living in poverty, it said.
China is endeavoring to make potatoes one of the country’s staple foods to better ensure food security and improve farmers’ income. The spud known as the “foreign yam” in many parts of China is credited for its nutrition value and resistance to drought, making it an ideal crop for rainless, impoverished rural parts of western China.
According to the agricultural authorities, by 2020 China will have more than 6.67 million hectares of potato planting areas, 30 percent of which can be processed into staple foods.
Fuente: XinhuaNet
