The potato is one of the world's most important food crops, being surpassed in total production only by wheat, corn and rice. Therefore, advances in potato breeding may greatly contribute to the world's food supply.

Potato breeders are expected to produce improved cultivars that give high yields of high quality tubers. Furthermore, resistance is required to diseases and pests during growth and storage, to stress conditions and to mechanical damage. Finally, specific properties of the tubers are required for various processing industries.

A rich source of genetic variation is available in existing cultivars, in primitive forms and in wild relatives of potato. The main problem faced by potato breeders is how to exploit most efficiently this large genetic variation.

In the last 75 years there has been a considerable expansion of world potato breeding and associated research. Before World War I breeders used to grow no more than several thousand seedlings, and a few years of basic selection were sufficient to put a new cultivar on the market. Research associated with potato breeding was very limited. Nowadays breeders in many countries grow several hundreds of thousands of seedlings. The breeding cycle is usually 10–12 years and breeding often involves sophisticated selection procedures. Governments in many countries have organized an elaborate varietal assessment system to make sure that only cultivars of satisfactory quality are being released. In addition, many sophisticated research centres make available to breeders new genetic variation, new breeding methods and improved selection techniques.