-- Quick Fact: Think about a potato. Get a visual image in your head. Got it? Good. This skin covered oval shaped classic looking white potato is believe it or not called an “Irish white potato”, as these were the type of potato that grew in the ill climates of wet Ireland.--

The potato was not really introduced to Ireland until the 1780’s when this island nation was the first European country to truly embrace the potato on a massive scale. During the 1780’s the Irishmen realized that this rugged food crop had a great ability to be produced abundantly and that it was also a very nutritious source of food for them. Potatoes, unlike any other major food crop, actually contain most of the vitamins our bodies require for sustenance. So the old ideal that potatoes are just empty calories is preposterous. More importantly, especially to the people of the 1780’s, potatoes can provide enough sustenance for 10 people on an acre of land. This very fact would lead to a huge population explosion in Ireland and eventually around Europe in the 1800’s. Also the fact that the potato proved to be an ideal crop for the rather harsh growing conditions of Ireland assisted in the popularity of this vegetable. Ireland actually receives around 60 inches of precipitation each year, which in general terms is way too much moisture for potatoes. However, the fact that this precipitation mostly falls as soft misty showers keeping the air cool and the soil moist actually allowed potatoes to flourish here. And by the mid-1800’s the Irish were very dependent on this now popular food stuff with the average Irish peasant consuming around 10 potatoes each per day; with these potatoes being around 80 percent of the Irishmen’s daily calories. They also used the potato fodder to feed their animals. Animals which provided elements to supplement their strongly potato influenced diets such as milk, meat, and eggs. This dependence on only one food crop was a very dangerous thing. But at the time it was the cheapest and most reliable way to feed oneself and no other crop had proved to be as good.

Then in the 1840’s the worst happened and disaster finally struck this small Island off the British coast. There were three successive years of microscopic fungus infiltration of the potato crops and also three years of heavy rains which combined together to rot the Irish potato crops in the ground they grew. Without the heavily relied upon potatoes both Irish peasants and their animals began to go hungry. This famine kept getting worse year after year and as the animals began to die off from lack of food the only remaining elements of an Irish peasant’s diet (the milk, meat and eggs from these animals) were no longer available. The result was that a tragic 1 million Irish men, women, and children died from starvation. Another 2 million of the nation’s 8 million person population emigrated off the island to North America and other parts of Europe. This Irish potato famine devastated Ireland and reduced her by almost one fourth of her population, numbers which have never been regained to this day.

In order to help prevent history from repeating itself today’s scientists are trying to learn a lesson from this terrible event in Irish and world history. They are constantly developing and studying any new and different variables to prevent a disaster like this from happening in one of our modern Third World Countries where the potato is or could be the most important staple.