I wonder if that was a case of a lack of genetic diversity. Potatoes are indigenous to the Americas, so there’s a lot more diversity which can help protect against disease.
The Irish famine was ultimately caused because their English landlords demanded they send their cash crops away to make them money, and the main thing they had left was potatoes. The potatoes weren’t plan A, they were plan Z after everything else was stolen from them. It was caused by colonialism. Yes, the potatoes were too important and the monoculture was a problem, but it’s not like they didn’t know that, they just didn’t have the freedom to do it better.
The potato blight actually returned some years later but by that time they had organised militant eviction defense to prevent the destruction of their communities and far fewer people died.
So a lot of historians and the Irish themselves will object to calling it the “potato famine” because it grossly distorts the reality of what happened.
Now that said, potatoes only is probably not a great “Plan A.”
I wonder if that was a case of a lack of genetic diversity. Potatoes are indigenous to the Americas, so there’s a lot more diversity which can help protect against disease.
For Ireland at least, it seems you’re not wrong.
The Irish famine was ultimately caused because their English landlords demanded they send their cash crops away to make them money, and the main thing they had left was potatoes. The potatoes weren’t plan A, they were plan Z after everything else was stolen from them. It was caused by colonialism. Yes, the potatoes were too important and the monoculture was a problem, but it’s not like they didn’t know that, they just didn’t have the freedom to do it better.
The potato blight actually returned some years later but by that time they had organised militant eviction defense to prevent the destruction of their communities and far fewer people died.
So a lot of historians and the Irish themselves will object to calling it the “potato famine” because it grossly distorts the reality of what happened.
Technically, I never said whose Plan A…
Fair lol.
“The crisis prorduced excess mortality” is a great way of putting that