History

8000 years ago

The origins of the potato can be traced to the highlands of the Peruvian Andes-mountains in South America on the border between Bolivia and Peru, 8,000 years ago. There, research indicates, communities of hunters and gatherers who had first entered the South American continent at least 7,000 years before began domesticating wild potato plants that grew around the lake in abundance. Some 200 species of wild potatoes are found in the Americas.

Solanum tuberosum

It was in the Central Andes that farmers succeeded in selecting and improving the first of what was to become, over the following millennia, a staggering range of tuber crops. In fact, what we know as “the potato” (Solanum species tuberosum) contains just a fragment of the genetic diversity found in the seven recognized potato species and 5,000 potato varieties still grown in the Andes.

Although Andean farmers cultivated many food crops – including tomatoes, beans and maize – their potato varieties proved particularly suited to the quechua or “valley” zone, which extends at altitudes of from 3,100 to 3,500 m (10,200 – 11,500 ft) along the slopes of the Central Andes (among Andean peoples, the quechua was known as the zone of “civilization”). Farmers also developed a frost-resistant potato species that survives on the alpine tundra of the puna zone at 4,300 m (14,100 ft).

Huari Civilisation

The food security provided by maize and potato – consolidated by the development of irrigation and terracing – allowed the emergence around 500 AD of the Huari civilization in the highland Ayacucho basin. Around the same time, the city state of Tiahuanacu rose near Lake Titicaca, thanks largely to its sophisticated “raised field” technology – elevated soil beds lined with water canals – which produced potato yields estimated at 10 tonnes per hectare. At its height, around 800 AD, Tiahuanacu and neighbouring valleys are believed to have sustained a population of 500,000 or more.

Inca Civilisation

The collapse of Huari and Tiahuanacu between 1000 and 1200 led to a period of turmoil that ended with the meteoric rise of the Incas in the Cuzco valley around 1400. In less than 100 years, they created the largest state in pre-Columbian America, extending from present-day Argentina to Colombia.

The Incas adopted and improved the agricultural advances of previous highland cultures, and gave special importance to maize production. But the potato was fundamental to their empire’s food security: in the Incas’ vast network of state storehouses, potato – especially a freeze-dried potato product called chuño – was one of the main food items, used to feed officials, soldiers and corvéé labourers and as an emergency stock after crop failures.

The End of the Incas

The Spanish invasion, in 1532, spelt the end of the Incas – but not of the potato. For, throughout Andean history, the potato – in all its forms – was profoundly a “people’s food”, playing a central role the Andean vision of the world (time, for example, was measured by how long it took to cook a pot of potatoes).

Farmers in some parts of the high Andes still measure land in topo, the area a family needs to grow their potato supply – a topo is larger at higher altitudes, where plots need to lie fallow for longer. They classify potatoes not only by species and variety, but by the ecological niche where the tubers grow best, and it is not unusual to find four or five species cultivated on a single, small plot of land.

Planting tubers remains the most important activity of the farming year near Lake Titicaca, where the potato is known as Mama Jatha, or mother of growth. The potato remains the seed of Andean society.

Source: International Year of the Potato FAO website

Introduction into Europe

It is thought that the potato reached Europe in the hands of returning Spanish explorers around 1570. How the potato came to be introduced into Ireland is not precisely known, though popular myth credits its introduction at Youghal, Co. Cork by Sir Walter Raleigh. Other anecdotal evidence suggest that the potato was washed up on the shores of Cork after the wreck of the Spanish Armada in the area.

Initially it was used as a supplementary vegetable by all social groups. In the poorest section of society however, it gradually replaced other foodstuffs and together with skimmed milk or buttermilk became the main component of their daily diet. Its popularity was such that 10 – 12 lbs./day was the average consumption for an adult male. In 1845 2,516,000 acres, were tilled with potatoes. This fell to just over one million acres in 1846 and to a much-reduced 248,000 acres in 1847. (This Great Calamity – Christine Kinealy).

16th Century A.D.

The Spanish conquistadors first encountered the potato when they arrived in Peru in 1532 in search of gold. In 1565 – Spanish explorer and conqueror, Gonzalo Jiminez de Quesada took the potato to Spain in lieu of the gold he did not find.

The potato first arrived to Ireland in 1589. Sir Walter Raleigh, British explorer and historian known for his expeditions to the Americas, first brought the potato to Ireland and planted them at his Irish estate at Myrtle Grove, Youghal, near Cork, Ireland.

Legend has it that he made a gift of the potato plant to Queen Elizabeth I. The local gentry were invited to a royal banquet featuring the potato in every course. Unfortunately, the cooks were uneducated in the matter of potatoes, tossed out the lumpy-looking tubers and brought to the royal table a dish of boiled stems and leaves (which are poisonous), which promptly made everyone deathly ill. The potatoes were then banned from court.

The potato was subsequently brought to territories and ports throughout the world by European sailors. It was slow to be adopted by distrustful European farmers, but soon enough it became an important food staple and field crop that played a major role in the European 19th century population boom. Unfortunately lack of genetic diversity, due to the very limited number of varieties initially introduced, left the crop vulnerable to disease.

The “Great Famine” in Ireland from 1845-1849 was caused because the potato crop became diseased. At the height of the famine at least one million people died of starvation. This famine left many poverty stricken families with no choice but to struggle for survival or emigrate out of Ireland. Towns became deserted, and shops closed because store owners were forced to emigrate due to the amount of unemployment. Over one and a half million people left Ireland for North America and Australia. Over just a few years, the population of Ireland dropped by one half, from about 9 million to little more than 4 million.

21^st Century A.D

There are now over a thousand different types of potatoes. Potatoes have become an integral part of much of the world’s cuisine. It is the world’s fourth-largest food crop, following rice, wheat, and maize.

In Europe per capita production is still the highest in the world, but the most rapid expansion over the past few decades has occurred in southern and eastern Asia. Potato consumption is expanding strongly in developing countries, which now account for more than half of the global harvest and where the potato’s ease of cultivation and high energy content have made it a valuable cash crop for millions of farmers. China is now the world’s largest potato-producing country, and nearly a third of the world’s potatoes are harvested in China and India.

The potato continues to be enjoyed in Ireland today. The year 2008 was declared the International Year of the Potato by the United Nations, noting that the potato is a staple food in the diet of the world’s population, and affirming the need to focus world attention on the role that the potato can play in providing food security and eradicating poverty.