Africa’s potato potential: The path to food security and resilience

Processed into flour, starch, and even beverages, the tuber crop’s reach extends well beyond the kitchen: potatoes have many derivatives, including a biodegradable substitute for plastic.  

In sub-Saharan Africa, where hunger and malnutrition remain acute challenges, potatoes offer a powerful opportunity. Around 33 million smallholder farmers - roughly 80 percent— depend on crops like potatoes for both food and income. These farmers produce around 70 percent of the continent’s food supply, typically on plots less than one hectare.

The urgency is clear. According to the 2026 Global Report on Food Crises, out of 266 million people across 47 countries who faced acute food insecurity in 2025, Africa bears a disproportionate share with over 87 million hungry people. About 35.5 million children were acutely malnourished.

In this context, scaling up nutritious, climate-resilient, and locally produced foods, like potatoes, has become essential.

Through the One Country One Priority Product (OCOP) initiative, FAO supports countries to focus on one special agricultural product and strengthen its full value chain, from seeds to trade. Four FAO Member countries have selected the potato as their special agricultural product under the OCOP initiative. Three of them are in Africa: Botswana, Eritrea, and Lesotho. The fourth country, Peru, is located along the Andes Mountains, where potatoes originated and have been consumed for over eight millennia.

This shared commitment is creating new opportunities for cooperation across regions. Building on this, FAO facilitates South–South Cooperation between Lesotho and Peru to scale up a sustainable potato sector.

The importance of these efforts becomes even clearer when viewed against the scale of today's food security challenges.

Potatoes offer a scalable, climate-adaptable, and nutritionally dense solution for Africa, where potato production in Africa surged 20 percent between 2019 and 2023. However, that momentum is now under pressure. Climate shocks, pests, diseases, and underdeveloped value chains are slowing growth. Nowhere is this more acute than in eastern and southern Africa, where invasive potato cyst nematodes (PCN) and bacterial diseases are spreading rapidly. Protecting production gains will require coordinated action across borders and along the value chain.

Regional cooperation, special attention to small-scale growers, and agricultural innovations are key to resilience and growth. To address this, FAO and partners collaborate with 12 African countries (Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, South Sudan, Uganda, the United Republic of Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe) under a project funded by the Standards and Trade Development Facility (STDF) of the World Trade Organization to strengthen inspection systems, diagnostics, and phytosanitary measures.

But resilience is not only about managing current threats. It is also about safeguarding the genetic resources needed to meet future challenges.

Efforts to conserve potato varieties, especially those from indigenous and local communities, are a top priority for FAO’s Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. The Commission works alongside global partners to safeguard these invaluable genetic resources, ensuring that they remain available for research, breeding, and sustainable agricultural practices. Through a benefit-sharing fund, the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture also supports the capacity of farmers and plant breeders to develop high-quality varieties tailored to diverse social and environmental conditions. 

Preserving diversity, however, is only part of the solution. Innovation must also help farmers respond to rapidly changing conditions.

Agricultural innovations, like biotechnology and gene editing, can accelerate growth. With innovations, potato varieties that are resistant to drought, heat, cold, pests, and diseases can be made available and more accessible to farmers, including those operating at a small scale. Together, conservation, innovation and cooperation can unlock the full potential of one of the world's most important crops.

Recently celebrated on 30 May, the International Day of Potato is a global rallying point — a call to governments, researchers, farmers, and consumers to act on the crop’s untapped potential. Stronger regional cooperation, empowered smallholder farmers, and agricultural innovation will ensure potatoes continue to nourish African consumers and sustain the livelihoods of African farmers.

Where potatoes grow, livelihoods flourish.