Even though Peru's potato production continues to increase, the country is often forced to import this product due to the size of domestic demand. According to engineer Celfia Obregon Ramírez, the executive director of the Center for Productive Innovation and Technological Transfer of Potato and other Andean Crops, this is the fifth year in which there has been an increase in the cultivation of potatoes in the country. Production went from 4,766,294 tons in 2017 to more than 5 million tons in 2018, which represents an increase of 6.8 percent.
Based on these figures, this year Peru is consolidating its position as the leading producer of potatoes in Latin America, a product that differentiates itself by the quality of its production and by its biodiversity, which makes it a product that arouses great expectation. In recent years, the potato has ceased to be exclusively a food product and it has become an innovative input for new industrial applications such as vodka, cosmetics, and others that are currently being developed in the country. In Peru, per-capita potato consumption stands at about 210 pounds per year.
According to the Obregon Ramirez, the increase in potato production in Peru is mainly due to the growth in consumption and domestic demand. "The potato sector continues to grow and it has increased its production area by almost [27,000 acres]. We consume all the potatoes that we produce and, according to the import figures, we still have a demand that is not satisfied by the national production, which means that processed potatoes have to be imported."
