French fries turned around the fortunes of Jitesh Patel.

He comes from a family of farmers in Gujarat in the northwest of India. Traditionally they grew cotton, but the returns were poor.

Droughts in 2001 and 2002 made the situation worse and the Patels knew things had to change.

"We realised that we had to start growing something that does not require lot of water," Mr Patel says.

So, they experimented with potatoes. Initially they tried table potatoes; the kind available in local markets and cooked at home, but the returns weren't much better than cotton.

Spurred by the arrival of french fry makers in their state, in 2007 they started growing the varieties of potato used by the food industry. It turned out to be a winning strategy.

"Since then, no looking back," says Mr Patel.

Mr Patel is part of India's rise to potato superpower status. It is already the world's second biggest spud producer.

But it's the export market, particularly of french fries, that's really flying.

Gujarat has become India's capital of french fry production, home to huge factories churning out chips, including facilities belonging to Canadian giant McCain Foods and India's biggest maker of French Fries, HyFun Foods.

From Gujarat fries are sent all over over the world. But the most important markets at the moment are in Asia, including the Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia, according to Devendra K, who has been studying the potato market for many years.

In February of this year, monthly exports of Indian frozen fries broke the 20,000 tonnes barrier for the first time. In the year to........

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