ROOT CROPS - World Food: Production and Use - page 174

T A B L E 5.2. Major Exporters of Potatoes (metric tons)

Exports
(E)

Imports
(I )

Difference
(E 2 I ) Country

Netherlands 1,696,616 1,633,569 63,047

France 1,434,335 363,728 1,070,607

Germany 1,320,537 538,017 782,520

Belgium 972,842 1,046,590 273,748

Canada 428,064 163,650 264,414

Source: FAOSTAT data (archives), 2005, http://faostat.fao.org/.

One might expect that the major producers of potatoes might be the major
exporters. However, as seen in Table 5.2, the major producers are not the major expor-
ters of potatoes. Likewise, nonproducers were not major importers (Table 5.3), as can
be seen by the fact that the Netherlands and Germany are both large exporters and
importers of potatoes.
On the world map in Figure 5.15 sweet potato production is seen to occur in far
fewer countries than potato. In Tables 5.4 and 5.5, it can be seen that of the 10
major importing and exporting countries, only 4 countries are both exporters and
importers of sweet potatoes. Of these only the United States, Malaysia, and France
are both major exporters and importers. China, Indonesia, and Israel are all major
exporters of sweet potatoes while Canada, Japan, and Malaysia are major importers.
Thus with respect to exports and imports, sweet potato is similar to potato in that the
list of countries is not the same.
It is important to note that the quantities of sweet potatoes being exported and
imported is dramatically lower than potatoes. Exports of sweet potatoes are from 55
to 58 times less than potatoes, and some countries that export do not import any
sweet potatoes, for example, Israel and Dominican Republic. In addition, generally
those countries exporting sweet potatoes only import relatively small quantities.
Importing countries import from 46 to 69 times less sweet potatoes than they do
potatoes. All importing countries are also exporters of sweet potatoes, and the amounts
are small except for Malaysia and France, which have significant amounts of exports com-
pared to imports, that is, exports are 26 and 19 percent of imports for the two countries,
respectively. As with potatoes countries may both export and import sweet potatoes.

T A B L E 5.3. Major Importers of Potatoes (metric tons)

Imports
(I )

Exports
(E)

Difference
(I 2 E)

Country

Netherlands 1,633,569 1,696,616 263,047

Belgium 1,046,590 972,842 73,748

Spain 778,493 232,518 545,975

Italy 616,643 183,349 433,294

Germany 538,017 1,320,537 2782,520

Source: FAOSTAT data (archives), 2005, http://faostat.fao.org/.