Dr Qu Dongyu, chair of the Potato Association of China (PAC), is to speak at the World Potato Congress (WPC2012) in Great Britain next year.

Dr Qu, vice governor of the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region of the People’s Republic of China, will address the congress on Feeding China’s Future.

The country’s most influential potato industry spokesman and a specialist in food security with many scientific successes to his name, will set out to explain how China’s potato industry – it produces close to 25 per cent of the world’s potatoes for consumption and starch production – will develop to keep pace with the demand for food by the country’s 1.5 billion-strong population as expected in 2030.

Dr Rob Clayton, director of WPC2012 organiser the Potato Council (GB), says that all delegates will relish an insight into the Chinese potato industry, no matter what their reason for attending the congress.

The potato is China’s fourth most important food crop after rice, wheat and maize, grown on more than five million of the country’s 123 million arable hectares.