Potato Conference 1—Rooted in staple‑food status, turning the “small potato” into a major industry!

In his address at the conference, Fei Dongbin, Deputy Secretary of the Ulanqab Municipal Party Committee and Mayor, stated that Ulanqab lies within the internationally recognized golden potato belt, characterized by its high altitude, abundant sunshine, and significant diurnal temperature variation. The potatoes produced here are nutritionally balanced and rich in dietary fiber, earning praise from Premier Li Keqiang, who remarked, “They have an excellent taste and a distinctive potato flavor.” In recent years, Ulanqab has anchored itself in a strategy to make potatoes a staple food, striving to transform this “small potato” into a major industry. The city has thus established a complete potato value chain, spanning research and development, cultivation, processing, and logistics and marketing. On the front of large-scale cultivation, Ulanqab has developed a 300-kilometer east–west potato production corridor stretching from Xinghe County to Siziwang Banner, covering nearly 2.5 million mu. The city’s annual potato planting area remains stable at around 4 million mu, with a total fresh‑potato output of 5 million tons—both acreage and yield ranking first among all prefecture‑level regions nationwide. In seed‑potato propagation, Ulanqab has built a comprehensive system, ranging from virus‑free shoot‑tip tissue culture and rapid multiplication to greenhouse‑based microtuber production and original‑seed breeding. The city now maintains 800,000 mu of seed‑potato fields, with a virus‑free seed‑potato coverage rate of 70%. In storage and processing, leading enterprises account for more than 80% of Inner Mongolia’s potato‑processing and logistics capacity, with a total storage capacity of 2.2 million tons and a processing conversion rate of 26%. In terms of brand building, Ulanqab has been designated “China’s Potato Capital” by the China Food Industry Association and recognized as a “China Characteristic Agricultural Product Advantage Zone” by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs. Moreover, “Ulanqab Potatoes” were included in the Top 100 agricultural products list for the inaugural Chinese Farmers’ Harvest Festival, with a brand value exceeding RMB 10 billion. On the eve of the Spring Festival, during his inspection tour of Ulanqab, Premier Li Keqiang emphasized, “We should align with the national policy of reducing corn acreage in the ‘sickle‑shaped’ regions and explore ways to support farmers in expanding the cultivation of high‑quality, competitive potato varieties.” This directive provides another significant boost to the potato industry. The current “China Potato Capital” Potato Industry Development Conference represents a concrete step to implement the spirit of the Premier’s important instructions and will undoubtedly play a pivotal role in advancing the sector. It is hoped that, through this event, more entrepreneurs engaged in potato production, processing, and marketing will come to Ulanqab, gain a deeper understanding of the region, and work together to develop this vital industry, sharing opportunities for growth and achieving mutual benefit and win‑win outcomes.

In his address, Yun Aihou, a member of the Party Leadership Group and Deputy Director of the Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Department of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, stated that this conference is a highly significant industry event held against the backdrop of the in-depth implementation of the rural revitalization strategy, the continued advancement of supply-side structural reform in agriculture and animal husbandry, and the decisive victory in the battle against poverty. The conference actively puts into practice the important instructions delivered by Premier Li Keqiang during his inspection tour in Ulanqab, focusing squarely on the conference’s theme. It facilitates comprehensive technical exchanges, strategic discussions, and product‑display matchmaking sessions centered on potato production technologies and industrial development strategies, thereby establishing a platform for farmers, leading enterprises, academic experts, industry professionals, and government agencies to engage in dialogue, collaboration, and mutually beneficial partnerships. This initiative will further deepen exchanges and cooperation both domestically and internationally, as well as within and beyond the region, driving technological progress and industrial upgrading in China’s potato sector, while also providing strong impetus to the development of the potato industry in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

In his address, Liu Xin, Deputy Director of the National Agricultural Technology Extension Service Center under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, emphasized that the Center is a key technical support body for the Ministry. One of its primary responsibilities is to conduct trials, demonstrations, evaluations, and the promotion and application of major agricultural technologies and superior crop varieties, including those for potatoes. The Center has both the responsibility and the willingness to work together with all sectors of society to contribute to the upgrading of the potato industry and the enhancement of its brand. He expressed the hope that this conference would serve as an opportunity to establish a platform for exchange across the entire potato value chain—upstream, midstream, and downstream—pooling resources and expertise from all stakeholders, fostering connectivity among breeding, production, storage, processing, and distribution, and building a mechanism for integrated development and large-scale promotion, thereby jointly advancing the modernization and branding of the potato sector.