Shortly after the world learnt that Benazir Bhutto had been assassinated I heard a news bulletin in which it was reported that the UN Security Council had gone into emergency session to discuss the developments. I found myself snorting derisively: what on earth would that achieve? I was a little surprised that my opinion of the United Nations had sunk so low.

But never mind. That should change this year. For the UN has taken time out from wringing its hands about international terrorism, shocking genocide, modern-day slavery and the status of the nuclear programmes of its more awkward members to make a big announcement: 2008 is the International Year of the Potato.

This is no sideshow. The decision was set out in a General Assembly resolution back in 2005. The UN doesn’t give over an entire year to any old issue. Since 1960, when the programme kicked off with the year of refugees, the spotlight has been shone on many important causes for humankind. We have had the year of the child, women, older persons, disabled persons, anti-apartheid, culture of peace, mountains and the ocean, to name but a few. Now it is time for Solanum tuberosum, the king of carbs, to be similarly honoured.

The International Year of the Potato, or IYP as it is known on the UN’s website, “will serve as a catalyst for information exchange and the initiation of medium and long-term programmes of potato development”. The UN wants to see “heightened global awareness” of this all but forgotten tuber.

The chips are down for the humble potato. Until the early 1990s most potatoes were grown and consumed in Europe, North America and the former Soviet Union. In 2006 the developing world overtook us. Production in the developed world has dropped from 195 million tonnes in 1990 to 155 million in 2006. Dr Robert Atkins, what have you wrought? OK, so potato production worldwide is dramatically up, to more than 300 million tonnes a year, thanks to that boom in the developing world which has made China the world’s biggest producer. But we shouldn’t let little statistics like that dissuade us from the urgent need to promote the potato. Nor should we let the potato’s status as the fourth-largest world food crop confuse us. Fourth – after rice, wheat and maize – is only fourth.

People, we need to eat more potatoes. For my parents’ generation a meal wasn’t a meal without potatoes. But today the popularity of pasta, rice, noodles, couscous and other staples is crowding out this hitherto unsung starch. When did you last eat any? Exactly. Apart from a couple of packets of ready-salted crisps in the pub last night, I’d have to go all the way back to yesterday lunchtime to find the last time I had potatoes as part of a meal. Sometimes a whole day goes by without me eating a single potato-based dish.

To help to give the potato a boost the UN must focus on encouraging people to find new ways to broaden their appeal. At the moment they suffer from a lack of versatility: the only options being to bake, roast, boil, fry, sauté or mash them, or turn them into chunky chips, French fries, home fries, wedges, waffles, skins, hash browns, dauphinoise, gnocchi, pancakes or dumplings. Somebody thinking of employing a potato in their cooking is faced with limited choices: should it be in the starter or the main course, a salad or a side dish? One ingredient of the meal or the meal itself? The UN may be able to help the potato to expand its repertoire.

But we’re not here to dwell on recipes. This is not a cookery column but a forum for discussing the serious affairs of the day. A highlight of the year will be a conference in Dundee in August, where delegates from around the world will discuss hot potato issues. The convention will be hosted by the Scottish Research Institute, keeper of the Commonwealth Potato Collection.

The potato certainly could do with the publicity. This tuber may have originated in the Andes 8,000 years ago, but its history in Europe is not even half a millennium long and its historical significance negligible, given that it has been responsible for only one epoch-shaping famine and mass migration. The Potato Museum in Albuquerque, New Mexico, is doing its best to inform, but only one museum dedicated to the potato is surely inadequate.

The UN will be vital to the mission to explain, for it can inform the world about the thousands of varieties of potato, most sorely neglected.

How many do you know? My point entirely. Apart from Royal Jersey – the only UK vegetable with an EU designation of origin – and King Edward, none at all, I expect. Oh, OK, Maris Piper. And Maris Bard. And Nicola.

And Desiree. Kipfler, perhaps. And Saxon. Maybe Charlotte. But apart from those few we are all shockingly ignorant about this vegetable.

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