{"id":18964,"date":"2021-10-26T20:04:05","date_gmt":"2021-10-27T00:04:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/?p=18964"},"modified":"2021-10-26T20:08:44","modified_gmt":"2021-10-27T00:08:44","slug":"episode-464-ireland-potato-field-on-edge-of-the-sea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/?p=18964","title":{"rendered":"EPISODE 464 IRELAND….POTATO FIELD ON EDGE OF THE SEA"},"content":{"rendered":"
episode 464    POTATO FIELD ON EDGE OF THE SEA<\/p>\n

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alan skech<\/div>\n
oct. 2021<\/div>\n

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TINY potato fields were still common in Ireland such as this one being tended by an Irish octogenarian in the 1960\u2019s.  There was <\/div>\n
a time, before the Potato Famine of the 1840\u2019s, when 40% of the Irish population depended upon these little fields for their<\/div>\n
survival.  And when the potato plant failed starvation, death, or flight from Ireland often in decrepit \u2018coffin’ ships designed to bring hand hewn timbers <\/div>\n
to Britain.<\/div>\n

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The potato had the power to change the world for good or ill.  Sometimes both good and ill at the same time.<\/div>\n

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Historian Charles Mann wrote  an astounding article titled \u201cHow The Potato Changed the World\u201d In the November issue of<\/div>\n
Scientific American.<\/div>\n

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His article gave much meaning to the picture I took in 1960 of this Irish farmer and his potato crop grown on the edge <\/div>\n
of a cliff hanging above the Atlantic Ocean.   A rocky field.  On the left is a rock pile presumably moved from the field.<\/div>\n

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When disease shrivelled the potato fields in 19th century Europe, devastation followed.  Ireland<\/div>\n
suffered worse than other European nations, all of which discovered they could no longer feed<\/div>\n
their people.<\/div>\n

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So many people were alive in he 19th century that some wondered how they all could be fed.<\/div>\n
.  Population had expanded\u2026indeed exploded due to the arrival of potatoes in<\/div>\n
Europe from their origin high in the Peruvian mountains where potato plants originated.  My cousin<\/div>\n
James Townsend, an agronomist, has climbed through the unusual fields of Peru where the potato<\/div>\n
is almost worshipped.   I remember Jim describing the incredible variety of Peruvian potatoes.<\/div>\n
There are around 5,000 varieties of potatoes, many of which do not look<\/div>\n
like the potatoes we eat boiled, mashed or chipped.  Some are tiny.  Some are red..or purple, or white…<\/div>\n
or all colours of the rainbow.  Some are so toxic that they can only be eaten if covered in mud because<\/div>\n
the mud neutralize the  toxins<\/div>\n

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Europe came to rely on just five six varieties brought back to Europe by Spanish \u201cconquerors\u201d as<\/div>\n
they systematically dismembered the Inca Empires of the Americas.   Safe to say that those<\/div>\n
potato plants were ultimately worth more than all the gold shipped as well.  <\/div>\n

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\"International<\/div>\n
photo by Martin Meja, AP, as in Scientific American, Nov. 2011<\/div>\n

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Today potatoes are the fifth most important food crop in the world.  After wheat, corn, rice and sugar.<\/div>\n

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Another historian, Alfred Crosby, used the expression Columbian Exchange to highlight the way<\/div>\n
Europeans affected life in the Americans\u2026and the reverse, the way the Americas affected<\/div>\n
western Europe.  Two ecosystems collided.  Wheat  and potatoes.  Which was the better<\/div>\n
food crop?  Which was more productive?  Which was easier to  harvest?  Which provided more<\/div>\n
nourishment per acre?   The potato. THE POTATO!<\/div>\n

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Wheat field canoe blown flat by the wind?  rains of wheat can also get too heavy and drop to the groud<\/div>\n
if harvested late?   The loaded wheat grains fall over.  Potatoes are very different.  They<\/div>\n
are tubers. They grow under the ground.  Hardier in that sense.  And potatoes provided more<\/div>\n
nutrion per acre\u2026much more.  Irish cottagers could live on the potatoes they grew in<\/div>\n
their tiny stoney fields.  Harvesting is easier using potato forks or potato plows rather than combine harvesters.<\/div>\n

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Potatoes can grow very large. Charles Mann describes one potato farmer harvested a 25 lb. potato<\/div>\n
bigger than  his head.   One year we grew potatoes on a field that had been fallow for two decades.<\/div>\n
The harvest was amazing.  Huge potatoes.  Baskets of them. But only happened that one year<\/div>\n
Our harvest this year is pathetic.   Why?  Land exhaustion\u2026need guano and lots of it.<\/div>\n

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IMPACT OF THE POTATO ON GLOBAL AFFAIRS<\/div>\n

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Another historian\u2026William Macneill\u2026argued \u201cthe potato\u201d by feeding rapidly growing populations, <\/div>\n
permitted a handful of European nations to assert dominion over most the world between 1750 and 1950″<\/div>\n

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Effects<\/div>\n

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1)The potato Ended the famines which had been common when population outgrew food supply<\/div>\n
2) Triggered the rise of wester civilization.  Between 1750 and 1850 the potato\u2026cheap, easy<\/div>\n
to produce food brought increase on population\u2026industrial revolution \u2026urbanization.<\/div>\n
3) Guanno followed the potato.  Use of fertilizer multiplied food production even more.<\/div>\n
Shiploads of bird dung from islands off coast of South America changed agriculture.<\/div>\n
Some of these deposits of dung were as much as 150 feet  thick.  This ancient supply has been<\/div>\n
exhausted.  Today the chemical industry provides most of fertilizer <\/div>\n
4) And when potato plants failed due to beetles and disease another new industry grew\u2026the pesticide<\/div>\n
industry which by the 1940\u2019s and 1950\u2019s was using ever stronger forms of arsenic as <\/div>\n
a control.  Arsenic kills potato beetles.   (lethal to us as well)  <\/div>\n
5) Pesticide industry is killing insects we depend upon such as honey bees.  We seem to e<\/div>\n
approaching a huge global problem.<\/div>\n

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This expanding food production is called The Green Revolution.   So far we are able to<\/div>\n
feed everyone\u2026basic food for many\u2026limited food for some.  <\/div>\n

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But there is a limit.   Ireland found that limit when the potato plants failed.  The effect was<\/div>\n
devastating.<\/div>\n

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This was the tiny potato field tended by Mr. Kennedy in Bonmahon in 1960.  When we returned on a tour in 1965  his potato<\/div>\n
field was grass.   I don\u2019t know what happened but it underscored that there are limits to global food production.<\/div>\n

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Much more can be said but the hour is late.<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
alan skeoch<\/div>\n
oct. 2021<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

episode 464    POTATO FIELD ON EDGE OF THE SEA alan skech oct. 2021 TINY potato fields were still common in Ireland such as this one being tended by an Irish octogenarian in the 1960\u2019s.  There was  a time, before the Potato Famine of the 1840\u2019s, when 40% of the Irish population depended upon these […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18964\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}