When the order came down from the top brass of Bangladesh's armed forces it sounded like a joke. Some of the soldiers and sailors who were told that from now on their daily rations would include increased servings of potatoes almost certainly did not take it seriously either. But in a country where rice is overwhelmingly the staple dish, this was no laughing matter. With Bangladesh and the rest of Asia gripped by a rice crisis that has sent governments into panic, last Friday's announcement by the military that it was turning to the potato to supplement its troops' rations was for real. "The daily food menu now includes 125g of potato for each soldier irrespective of ranks,' it said. But it is not just in Bangladesh that the humble potato is being turned to for help. With world food prices soaring and with riots breaking out everywhere from Egypt to Indonesia, experts believe that increased use of potatoes could provide at least part of the solution. Easy to grow, quick to mature, requiring little water and with yields two to four times greater than that of wheat or rice, the potato is being cultivated more in an effort to ensure food security, agronomists say. Such are the hopes being placed on the tuber that the UN named 2008 the International Year of the Potato. "As concern grows over the risk of food shortages and instability in dozens of low-income countries, global attention is turning to an age-old crop that could help ease the strain of food price inflation,' said the world body. "It is ideally suited to places where land is limited and labour is abundant, conditions that characterise much of the developing world. The potato produces more nutritious food more quickly, on less land, and in harsher climates than any other major crop.' Take China. Already the world's largest producer of potatoes, the country has set aside large areas of additional agricultural land in an effort to increase their cultivation. India has told food experts it wants to double potato production in the next five to 10 years while Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan are also working to increase the area under cultivation for potatoes. Belarus currently leads the world in potato consumption, with each inhabitant eating an average of 376lb a year. In the north-east Indian state of Nagaland, which borders Burma, local authorities are working with NGOs to develop quick-maturing potatoes that can be grown between the region's two rice harvests. It is seen as an additional source of food rather than a replacement and the NGOs are working with the communities to educate people about the benefits of the potato and how to grow it. In Peru, where the potato was first cultivated, a doubling in the price of wheat in the past year has led to the launch of a government programme to encourage bakers to use potato flour rather than wheat flour to make bread. As part of the scheme, potato bread is being given to schoolchildren, soldiers and even prisoners in a hope that it will catch on. At the moment, there is a shortage of mills that are able to make potato flour. "We have to change people's eating habits,' Ismael Benavides, Peru's agriculture minister, told Reuters. "People got addicted to wheat when it was cheap.' The potato was first cultivated 7,000 years ago high in the Andes close to Lake Titicaca. There are at least 5,000 varieties of potato, of which more than 3,000 are found in the mountains. Ranging in colour from plaster-board white through yellow to aubergine purple, the tuber retains huge practical and cultural significance in South America. It was taken to Europe by the Spanish, who apparently first encountered it in 1532. Documentary evidence suggests that by 1573, potatoes were already being sold in the markets in Seville. It arrived in India some time afterwards, possibly brought by the Portuguese who seized Goa. Known in Hindi as aloo it is the basis of a number of famous Indian dishes, such as the potato and cauliflower curry aloo gobi. Experts say the potato has great nutritional value. It is a source of complex carbohydrates which release their energy slowly and have just 5 per cent of the fat content of wheat. They have more protein than corn and nearly double the amount of calcium. They also contain iron, potassium, zinc and vitamin C, and were eaten by sailors in previous centuries as a guard against scurvy. And yet, for all its nutritional wonders and easy-to-grow charms, the potato seems to suffer from an image problem. "The thing is that in the West we take the potato for granted,' said Paul Stapleton, a spokesman for the International Potato Centre, a non-profit group based in Peru that has been working with governments around the world to develop faster-maturing strains of potato. Speaking yesterday from Lima, Mr Stapleton said he believed potatoes could help solve not just the current food crisis but also the challenges of feeding a world with a population that is growing by 600 million people every 10 years. "It can help with the current crisis and with the population that is coming,' he said. "There are no more areas to plant rice or wheat. What is going to happen as the population increases? Either we are going to increase yields of what we are already growing or use marginal land. The potato is perfect for that.' Analysts say that while the price of other foods has increased sharply, one factor that has helped potatoes remain affordable for the world's poorer people is that it is not a global commodity that attracts the sort of professional investment that was so damned by the UN's food envoy, Mr Ziegler. Around 17 per cent of the 600 million tons of wheat produced every year are traded internationally compared to just 5 per cent of potatoes. As a result, potato prices are driven mainly by local tastes rather than international demand, they say. In such circumstances, the scientists in Lima believe it is in the developing world that the potato will reach new heights. From Kenya and Uganda to Nepal and Bangladesh, they envisage increased cultivation of potatoes and a situation where farmers will grow them either as cash crops to sell in the market or else to feed their families.