Potato

The homeland of the potato: more than 3,000 varieties are grown in the Peruvian Andes – purple, pink, yellow and speckled.

The potato is a perennial of the nightshade family, grown for its underground tubers, which are swollen stems that store starch. It was domesticated 8,000–10,000 years ago in the Lake Titicaca area and reached Europe in the 16th century, eventually becoming one of the world’s most important food plants. In the Andes it is grown even above 4,000 m, on terraces and communal fields. For centuries Andean farmers have made chuño – potatoes dried by alternately freezing them at night and drying them in the sun, which can be stored for years.

Significance in the country

Peru prides itself on the greatest diversity of potato varieties in the world; the International Potato Center (CIP) is based in Lima, and National Potato Day is celebrated here on 30 May.

Where it grows

Throughout the Peruvian Andes, most of all in Puno, Cuzco, Huánuco, Junín, Cajamarca and Ayacucho; traditional varieties are most numerous around Lake Titicaca and in the valleys of Cuzco.

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