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Ireland was certainly producing plenty of other crops than potatoes but when I said they were lacking biodiversity I was specifically referencing the potato mon
by kyteland 6y ago
Ireland was certainly producing plenty of other crops than potatoes but when I said they were lacking biodiversity I was specifically referencing the potato monoculture. The poor were overwhelmingly reliant on the potato and it was wiped out by a blight that could have been largely avoided with a broader diversity of potatoes being grown. Similarly there are plenty of banana varieties around the world, but the only one sold in grocery stores near me is being wiped out by blight. Imagine if something similar happened to corn or wheat. An aggressive blight on a main cultivar would be pretty devastating, even if there are still lots of heirloom varieties being grown in small quantities around the world.
- pasabagi 6y agoWas there a potato monoculture? I just ask because, I thought crop monoculture was a relatively modern thing, and because a new disease (like p. blight) are usually pretty broad spectrum, and very capable of skipping between species. Bananas are kind of a weird case for multicropping, because they are all sterile clones. So this makes them horribly susceptible to every disease under the sun.