Hansard

I, too, thank Claire Baker for securing the debate. This debate exemplifies what members’ debates should be about. I thank her very much for bringing the issue to Parliament.

Growing up in Angus, we never spoke about “potatoes”—that was for the toffs—but about “tatties”. They were part of our annual calendar of events. From when I was eight years old, I would be sowing tatties in the spring, then we had the three-week tattie holiday in October. Between those times, we were out picking daffodils at Dykelands and picking strawberries and raspberries at Charleton, near Montrose, in the summer holidays. It probably sounds like child slave labour these days, but it was just a normal part of our lives.

Growing up in Montrose, I was aware of the excellent disease-free seed potatoes that are grown in Scotland and exported to many countries, so it is no surprise to hear that overseas demand for seed potatoes has risen by 30 per cent in the past 10 years. However, I have to say that, probably like many people—I make no apology for it—I was not fully aware of the nutritional benefits of potatoes. I was probably not very aware at all of that until I started researching for this debate. It is perhaps lack of knowledge about those benefits that has been responsible for some of the decline of 500,000 tonnes in the potato crop between 2011 and 2013. To me, that seems to be a huge amount.

I also have to confess that the year of the potato 2008 passed me by, so I cannot say that I learned much about the potato that year. However, the briefing from the Potato Council states that in 2008 the Scottish Government published a target, which Claire Baker mentioned, of increasing potato consumption by 25 per cent, which was in “Healthy Eating, Active Living: An action plan to improve diet, increase physical activity and tackle obesity (2008-2011)”. The action plan was set to run for three years. Unfortunately, the Potato Council’s briefing states:

“Subsequent policy documents have been inconsistent in referencing this target.”

I hope that the debate goes some way to addressing that. However, with reference to the goal of increasing potato consumption by 25 per cent, Michael Matheson stated that

“there is no evidence base regarding the health benefits of consuming potatoes specifically”.—[Official Report, Written Answers, 27 November 2013; S4W-18389.]

Well, I have to say that I found plenty such evidence. We have heard plenty of it in the debate and there are plenty more sources.

As Claire Baker said, Scotland is the right place for growing potatoes because the amount of water that is used for the process here is just 29 per cent of the global average for the process. It uses 133 times less water than rice growing and it results in 42 per cent less greenhouse gas emissions than producing pasta does. On the health and nutrition front, a medium potato provides 45 per cent of the daily required amount of vitamin C—I certainly did not know that—more potassium than bananas, spinach or broccoli and 10 per cent of the daily required amount of vitamin B6. All of that is done for 110 calories with no fat, sodium or cholesterol. If I did not know that, how many other people out there do not know it?

Potatoes are fat free and are lower in calories than white rice and pasta; they have almost half the calories of the same amount of white rice and significantly fewer calories than boiled white pasta. In terms of fibre, the potato yields double the amount of fibre that is in pasta and more than 20 times that which is found in boiled white rice. The potato is a superfood, by any other name.

Claire Baker referred to rising food prices, and price is a factor with potatoes, given that products such as pasta and rice can act as very acceptable substitutes for potatoes. I find it worrying that ware potatoes have increased in price from £100 per tonne in 2011 to £270 per tonne in 2012. I hope that that price increase will encourage farmers and other growers to allocate more land to the production of potatoes, given the financial incentive to do so.

I have found the factual information surrounding the debate very interesting. I will be sure to include tatties in my weekly shop from now on. I hope that the debate has raised awareness about the nutritional and health benefits of the potato.