Peru is considered to be one of the most vulnerable countries in the world to climate change. On the steep slopes of Chopcca, a community of 10,000 residents in the Andes, the rains come later, don't last as long and end more abruptly than they did only a few years ago. Frosts and hail hit earlier and more frequently. Fewer clouds drift by to moderate the extremes of temperature.

Potato are cheaper, more nutritious and easier to grow than grain. But turning to the spud does not come without risks.

Cultivation of sweet potato in the coastal char lands could help ensure food security, said the experts at a seminar on Monday.

They said char lands, which run risks of natural calamities like cyclone and tidal surge, are suitable and cost-effective for growing nutritious potato during the dry season.

The international seminar was organised jointly by Brac and the Centre for International Potato (CIP) at Brac Centre Inn in the capital.

Potato merchants want the state to reimburse the cost of cold storage preservation of potato bags through subsidy. The state this year recorded 25 percent additional yield of potato raising the total production to 85 lakh metric ton. The 104 cold-storages operating across the state have managed to keep 2.42 crore potato packets which according to the potato merchants was 60 lakh more packets compared to last years' preservation.

On 5 June 2008, an authorized, small-scale field trial of transgenic potato plants for nematode control was destroyed by people seeking to coerce government and society. It was one of only two trials authorized in the United Kingdom this year. Our concern is that Directive 2001/18/EC, the European Union (EU) legislation that governs such trials, is confused. (Correspondence)

Peru: They have quarreled over the 1880's pillaging of Peru's national library by Chilean troops. They have squabbled over who has the naming rights to pisco, the fiery grape brandy. Now, Peru and Chile are arguing over another hot-button issue: the origins of the potato. Peruvian agronomists, historians and diplomats are chafing at an assertion by Marigen Hornkohl, Chile's agriculture minister, who said on Monday, "Few people know that 99% of the world's potatoes have some type of genetic link to potatoes from Chile.' Peru, where the potato is a

DHAKA, Bangladesh: Potatoes are not traditionally high on the menu for the 140 million people in Bangladesh, but a surge in rice and wheat prices has prompted the government to popularize the humble spud as a substitute food. "Think potato, grow potato and eat potato," was the main slogan of a three-day potato festival in Dhaka last week.

Chief Adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed yesterday underscored the need for diversifying the use of potato through changing food habit to help ensure food security of the country. In a statement, he said it is equally important to create awareness in all tiers of the society alongside carrying out a massive campaign about various recipes of potato to popularise it. The CA appreciated the initiative of organising a three-day potato campaign marking 'International Potato Year 2008', declared by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

When the order came down from the top brass of Bangladesh's armed forces it sounded like a joke. Some of the soldiers and sailors who were told that from now on their daily rations would include increased servings of potatoes almost certainly did not take it seriously either.

Cultivation of sugar-free potatoes is bringing good health to the farmers in around 19 villages of Nagaon. Now, this is not because the consumption of the same minimizes their risk of becoming diabetic, but because of the buy-back process in the contact farming system, which is fetching them Rs 6 per kg at a time when the other local potato growers in the State are struggling for a market, where they can get only Rs 3 per kg at bulk selling.

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