How did a potato revolutionize the world?
In 1957, the
French philosopher and literary critic Roland Barthes published his collection
of essays entitled Mythologies, in which he wrote that the potato crop comes
from the American continent and is the "essential symbol of
patriotism" and "Frenchness."
Just a
century earlier, a potato disease had caused a famine in Ireland that had
halved its population within a few years.
The effects
of this famine, which lasted for decades, wreaked havoc on social and economic
life there. Today, the world's largest potato producers are China, India,
Russia, and Ukraine, respectively.
But despite
their deep and heartfelt attachment to the potato, none of these countries can
claim to have originated in that country.
Why did
the size of chips decrease in Belgium
This humble
potato is native to the Andes region of South America, where it was
domesticated more than 8,000 years ago.
After a long
journey, it reached Europe in the mid-15th century, from where it traveled west
and north, back to the Americas and beyond.
The story of
the potato's global journey is the subject of Rebecca Earle's forthcoming book,
'Feeding the People: The Politics of the Potato', in which she says that
'despite its birth in the Andes, it is an immensely successful global food.'
She writes
that 'it is grown in every part of the world and, without exaggeration, people
everywhere consider it 'their food.'
Earlee calls
it the most successful immigrant because its origins have become alien to
farmers and eaters alike.
Now, the
claim of American and Italian farmers is as strong as that of a Peruvian, as it
has become a part of the diet of people living everywhere, having traveled from
generation to generation.
The potato
is the world's fourth most important agricultural crop after rice, wheat and
maize, and the first among non-cereals.
Who
convinced the world to adopt it completely in just a few centuries? The reason for the
potato's extraordinary appeal is its immense nutritional value, its ease of
production compared to other agricultural products, its ability to remain
hidden from wars and tax collectors because it grows underground, and its
friendliness to the men and women who work in the fields.
The best
place to understand the origin of the potato is the International Potato Center
(CIP), where research is conducted on every aspect of the potato.
The center
is located on the outskirts of Lima, the capital of Peru, and has a collection
of thousands of potato specimens. “The Andes have the greatest genetic
diversity, but here you will also find species from Chile to the Americas,”
says Rene Gomez, senior curator of the gene bank at CIP.
He says the
potato was first domesticated near Lake Titicaca in the Andes, about 1,000
kilometers southeast of Lima.
It then
became popular and became an important part of the daily diet of the local
people. During their time, it was dried to make a special type of food that
could be preserved for years, even decades.
Outside the Americas
The Spanish conquest of 1253 ended their rule, but potato
cultivation continued.
The invaders brought potatoes across the ocean, along with
other crops such as tomatoes, avocados, and corn. Historians call this the
Great Columbian Exchange. It was the first time potatoes had traveled outside the
Americas.
The species, which was brought from the Andes, had difficulty
adapting to Spain and other parts of Europe.
The equatorial region where the potato was domesticated had a
long day, meaning it had twelve hours of continuous sunlight, says evolutionary
geneticist Herman A. Barbino Rao.
The long days of the European summer made the potato
hesitant, so it could not grow during these days, despite favorable conditions.
Instead, it flourished well in the fall before winter set in.
This is why the potato crop was not successful in the first few decades after
its arrival in Europe.
Then the potato found a more favorable climate in Ireland,
where a cool but fog-free autumn allowed it to ripen.
The potato crop was introduced here from Spain in the 1580s. It
took farmers a century to develop a potato variety suited to the local climate,
one that could be sown at the beginning of summer.
But eventually the potato became a variety that became an
important crop for farmers in later times.
The
humble potato
Potatoes
proved valuable to farmers because they provided more nutrition per hectare.
Especially
in Ireland, where farmers leased land. Landowners had increased their fees,
forcing farmers to produce more from a small amount of land.
Sociologist
James Lang writes in his book 'Notes of a Potato Watcher', 'No other crop could
produce more per acre than potatoes, and they were also easier to grow and
store.'
Potatoes
contain all the nutrients except vitamins A and D. No other food can compete
with potatoes in terms of their essential properties for life. If you mix
potato skins with milk or milk products, you also get vitamins A and D, making
you a nutritious staple food.
Then, in
every 100 grams of potato, you also get 2 grams of protein. According to some
estimates made in Ireland in the early 1600s, if one ate five and a half
kilograms of potatoes a day, it would be enough to meet all nutritional needs.
Lang writes
that the potato reached Britain from Ireland and then northern Europe. In 1650,
it began to be found in Germany, Prussia, in 1740 in Poland and in 1840 in
Russia.
He writes
that in times of war, soldiers and tax collectors, seeing the harvest of other
crops, would collect their share from the farmers or plunder their stocks.
But they
rarely saw the potato crop buried under the soil, and the farmers would dig up
potatoes as needed to quench their stomachs.
This
property of the potato also came to the attention of nobles and military
strategists.
The Prussian
king Frederick the Great even issued a decree on the cultivation of potatoes so
that the people would have food in case of an invasion by an enemy army.
According to
a report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, other
countries followed suit, and in the early 1800s, potatoes became a means of
storing food in Europe during the Napoleonic Wars.
In a 1999
article titled “How the Potato Changed the World’s History,” historian William
McNeill wrote that potatoes became a valuable crop during times of war.
“Every
military campaign in Europe after 1560 increased the area under potato
cultivation, and this trend continued until World War II,” he says.
Nutrition
and strength
Within a few
centuries, the potato had become a major crop in Europe and the global economy.
For decades, food historians have attributed the potato’s popularity and spread
to far-sighted people who recognized its nutritional value.
But Earle
disagrees.
She says
that farmers are credited with popularizing the potato in Europe. The nobility
did not discover it, but they were well aware of its nutritional properties.
They knew
how important it was for the health of the people to the survival of a state.
In this way, they understood the connection between potatoes and power.
In her 2018
paper, The Promotion of the Potato in Eighteenth-Century Europe, Earle writes
that the abundance of healthy food had become fundamental to European
imperialism and imperialism.
So the
interest of the nobility in the potato was not because it was a new crop, but
because European rulers understood the direct connection between good food and
the state.
And in this
case, there was no substitute for potatoes.
Adam Smith
writes in The Wealth of Nations, “The food obtained from a field of potatoes is
better than that obtained from a field of wheat. No other crop can compete with
the potato in nutritional value, nor can it be more suitable for the human
body.”
He is right
in his analysis. But in Europe, potatoes were not promoted by the nobility, but
by the peasants. This raises the question, says Earle, of how Smith and his
contemporaries compared nutrition.
In the 18th
century, scientists did not agree on the amount of vitamins, proteins and salts
in food. "At that time, they just said, 'Look at the potato eaters.' They
look more muscular, have a slimmer body and are more plump than those who eat
other foods.'"
According to
the Quarterly Journal of Economics, potato eaters have been recorded to have an
increase in height of up to an inch and a half. An economic study has shown
that French soldiers born after 1700 who ate potatoes were taller than others.
The same
document also claims that the population of Europe and Asia also increased
rapidly after the spread of potatoes.
According to
researchers, potatoes were responsible for a quarter of the increase in the
world's population and cities between 1700 and 1900.
Return to
the Andes
The potato
boom continued until a disease caused a great famine in Ireland between 1845
and 1849.
On the one
hand, the potato crop was destroyed, and on the other hand, the inaction of the
British government made the situation worse (rather than taking any relief
action, the government left the situation to the mercy of the market).
This
resulted in the deaths of at least one million people in Ireland, the
emigration of one million to the United States and more than two million to
other countries. Thus, within a few years, the country's population was halved.
The famine
drew attention to the fact that 80% of the country's food energy was obtained
from potatoes and the production of other crops was very low.
Such
dependence on a single species increased the risk of disease in potatoes,
because domestication had destroyed the genetic diversity of the potato.
Although
some work was done in the 18th century on mixing different varieties of
potatoes brought from the Andes and Chile, it was on a limited scale.
Various
projects were implemented to ensure the food security of farmers. “One way was
for potato growers to mix in different wild varieties of potatoes,” writes
Barbino. 151 wild varieties of the ancestor of today’s potato are still found
in the Andes.
In the early
20th century, scientists also combined different varieties of domestic and wild
potatoes to maintain the properties of the domestic potato and make it
resistant to diseases. Many varieties of potatoes cultivated today are the
result of these experiments.
These wild
varieties of potatoes may also help to combat the effects of changing
temperatures and climate change.
A recent
study has shown that carbon dioxide emissions could reduce potato production by
26 percent by 2085.
The genetic
pool of wild potato varieties can provide us with traits that are resistant to
frost, drought and temperature increases.
Agricultural
experts in Europe, the United States and more recently Asia have worked on
similar potato varieties. Of the twenty major potato producers in the world,
the United States, Peru and Brazil have been working on potatoes for centuries,
but now other countries have also developed their own varieties.
The
government in China is rapidly trying to make potatoes a staple food for the
people. To do this, it is using the same methods that European rulers used in
the 18th century: convincing people of the benefits of potatoes through the
media, popular figures and general scientific books.
In India
too, potatoes are used in a thousand ways and now it is very difficult to
convince Indian farmers that potatoes are an indigenous crop.
This
universal versatility of potatoes has made the possibilities limitless.