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> "...an invasive water mold ... reached Ireland, where, '... four out of ten Irish ate no solid food except potatoes, and … the rest were heavily dependent on

• Retric 12y ago
  (roughly 40 percent of U.S. corn is used for ethanol roughly 36 percent of U.S. corn, plus distillers grains left over from ethanol production, is fed to cattle, pigs and chickens. So, a 50% drop in corn production would not have nearly the impact you might think. Also, during the potato famine Ireland was forced to export a lot of food which made everything far worse. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland)#mediaviewer/File:Potatoes_Production_Great_Famine_en.svg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland)#mediavie... Note: Yield per acer does not stay down for that long but acerage under production does.
• qwerta 12y ago
  > Imagine if something were to arise that took out the corn crop There would still be plenty of food to go around. Problem was that British did not allowed people to eat corn.
  • Wildgoose 12y ago
    Rubbish. There was famine across the whole of Europe. The government imported millet to feed people and militant Irish Nationalists called it "Peel's Brimstone" (it's yellow, remember) and claimed that those eating it would put their immortal souls in danger. Yes, they could have done more. But that doesn't mean they actively plotted to starve people as modern Irish Nationalists like to claim.
• yabs 12y ago
  maybe we'd be better off? so much corn (and byproducts) not a good things for us.
  • yabs 12y ago
    sorry, i meant, "so much corn--not a good thing for us"