The contest, entitled Focus on a global food, invites photographers to capture the spirit of the International Year in images that illustrate potato biodiversity, cultivation, processing, trade, marketing, consumption and utilization, according to the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO).

“Photographers who explore the world of the potato will find plenty of subject matter,” said FAO’s NeBambi Lutaladio, the coordinator of the International Year, which aims to raise global awareness of the potato’s potential to help countries achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a set of targets for reducing extreme poverty and other global ills by the year 2015.

“It is grown in more than 100 countries, from the Andes and China's Yunnan plateau to the subtropical lowlands of India, on the plains of northern Europe and the steppes of the Ukraine,” Mr. Lutaladio noted.

Sponsored by Nikon, the contest has separate categories for professional and amateur photographers, and will accept single digital images or ‘photo stories’ of four to eight related images, in either black-and-white or colour.

The winning photographs will be chosen by a selection panel that includes some of the world’s leading professionals in the field of photography. Winners will be awarded cash prizes totalling some $11,000 as well as Nikon cameras.

The deadline for entries is 1 September 2008.

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Top official launches UN International Year of the Potato