Speaker: Olivia - Université libre de Bruxelles
Dates: 30 May 2025
Venue: Parque de la Papa - Peru

International Potato Day

In 2005, a delegation of cultivators from the Potato Park successfully petitioned the Peruvian government to declare May 30 as National Potato Day – a celebration that has since been recognized by the FAO as International Potato Day. Since then, communities have gathered annually to honor the tuber, playing music and dancing in their most beautiful costumes while carrying samples of freshly harvested potatoes from a wide array of varieties. After their dances, the participants gather around piles of potatoes covered with straw and call upon the animu of the many different potato varieties to remain in their communities, attracting them with incense, maize beer, coca leaves, flower petals, and other ingredients shared with different earth beings such as surrounding apus.

These celebrations bring together not only community members but also a range of visitors, including local politicians, international agricultural policymakers, conservation scientists, academics, artists, journalists, and tourists.

The 2025 celebration was attended by representatives of FAO–Peru, the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, the International Potato Center, and the network for Research in Agroecology in Latin America and the Caribbean (IPA–LAC). On this occasion, the first copies of the Papakunaq Kawsaynin Qellqapi Taqesqa (Written Repository on the Life of Potatoes) were delivered to its authors and to the representatives of the institutions present. Lino Mamani offered words in Quechua, emphasizing that the book reclaims respect for the potato, against any claim of ownership over its diversity of varieties.