Potatoes at the Crossroads: New book explores the future of the global potato industry

A wide-ranging new book examines potatoes through the lenses of food security, climate resilience, technology, sustainability, and the people shaping the crop’s future.

A new book by Potato News Today editor and publisher Lukie Pieterse takes a wide-ranging look at the global potato industry at a time of accelerating change, mounting pressure and renewed opportunity.

Potatoes at the Crossroads: People, Climate and the Future of a Quietly Powerful Crop has now been published as a softcover and eBook through Amazon’s publishing platform. The book brings together decades of potato industry observation, practical experience, technical reporting and human reflection into a broad examination of where the sector stands today – and where it may be heading.

The book argues that potatoes are no longer simply a familiar staple or an overlooked side dish. In a world shaped by climate instability, water scarcity, food insecurity, labour shortages, technological disruption and changing consumer expectations, the potato deserves to be viewed as a strategic crop with growing relevance to the future of food systems.

Further details on the book and ordering information are available on Amazon at:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H27H7PRG

A global industry at a turning point

Across its 46 chapters and 621 pages, Potatoes at the Crossroads explores the potato industry through five broad lenses: the future of food, climate and biological risk, technology and innovation, the human realities of farming, and the role of women in shaping the future of potato research and breeding.

The book begins by situating potatoes within global food systems, including their role in food security, changing production patterns, retail and processing demand, and the growing importance of the crop in regions such as Africa and China. It then moves into some of the pressures now reshaping the sector: extreme weather, water risk, soil health, pest and disease threats, storage risk, and the increasingly complex economics facing growers.

A major theme running through the book is resilience. Pieterse argues that the future of the potato industry will depend not only on yield, market access or processing capacity, but also on how effectively growers, researchers, breeders, storage managers, processors, retailers and policy makers respond to a rapidly changing operating environment.

Technology, storage and innovation under scrutiny

The book also examines the promise and limitations of emerging tools, including digital agriculture, disease forecasting, portable DNA testing, traceability systems, true potato seed, artificial intelligence, biochar, compost-based amendments and regenerative production approaches.

Rather than treating technology as a guaranteed solution, the book asks a practical question: when do new tools genuinely improve decision-making and resilience on the ground, and when do they simply add cost, complexity or new dependencies?

Storage also features prominently. Several chapters consider the often-underestimated role of potato storage in turning a good crop into a profitable season – or, when conditions deteriorate, into a costly loss. The book links storage to climate change, energy constraints, disease management, food waste reduction and the technical skill required to protect quality after harvest.

The people behind the crop

While the book is grounded in industry trends and technical realities, it also gives considerable attention to the people who carry the potato sector forward.

Pieterse writes about farmers, farm families, storage managers, breeders, researchers and industry professionals not merely as economic actors, but as people working under pressure in a sector where risk is often personal as well as financial. Chapters on farmer resilience, hope, identity, succession and the emotional weight of farming bring a human dimension to issues often discussed only in terms of markets, production statistics or policy.

The book also includes a dedicated section on women in potato breeding and innovation, highlighting the importance of visibility, recognition and structural support for women whose work is shaping the future of the crop.

A crop with renewed global relevance

The central message of Potatoes at the Crossroads is that the potato industry is entering a period in which old assumptions may no longer hold. Climate patterns are shifting. Pests and diseases are behaving differently. Water is becoming more contested. Retail and processing power continues to evolve. New technologies are arriving quickly, while growers and supply chains face pressure to become more sustainable, transparent and efficient.

Yet the book is not pessimistic. It presents the potato as a crop with substantial future potential – provided that the industry makes thoughtful decisions about breeding, soil health, water use, storage, technology adoption, market structures and the people who bear most of the risk.

For readers inside the potato sector, the book offers a broad, integrated view of the forces reshaping the industry. For readers outside the sector, it makes the case that potatoes are far more important to food security, rural economies and climate adaptation than their modest public profile suggests.