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Re: Potato famine (was Re: HELP NEEDED SUSTAINABLE LIVING IN



Jym Dyer wrote, (note trimmed newsgroup list)

>=o= One of the major culprits in the famine was the potato
>itself:  While not quite a monoculture, the varieties grown
>were few in number, and all were of course introduced species.
>(Note that prevailing industrial agricultural technology is
>built upon these very vulnerabilities!)  They had not adapted
>to the ecosystems in Ireland, and suffered from a number of
>blights in the 19th Century, the worst one being in 1847.

Actually, the Phythophthora Infestans blight began in the New World (where
the potato was indigenous) in the summer of 1843, made its way (by
mysterious means) across the Atlantic to continental Europe in the next
year and reached Ireland in 1845.  Ireland was especially hard hit by the
blight to the extent that the potato was a monoculture (1/3 of all arable
land in Ireland was under potatoes at the time).  An examination of the
variability of potato yields in the 18th and 19th century reveals that the
probability ex ante of two successive failures was quite small, let alone
three.  By the way, potatoes had been cultivated in Ireland since 1590.

>=o= The other major culprit was political.  At the time of
>the potato famine, Ireland still produced enough food for
>the Irish people to eat; yet the marketplace was controlled
>by the British, who exported the food.  Their reason?  They
>didn't want to interfere with the free market!  (And no, I
>am not making that up -- that is exactly the reason given!)

Given by whom?  This "history" has its roots in a romantic version of Irish
nationalism and socialism, and has been thoroughly debunked by serious
historians, both Irish and not.  The Corn Laws (prohibiting the importing
of grain) were repealed in 1845 mainly so that the Irish could afford to
buy the food that they could not grow.  In 1847, Ireland exported 146,000
tons of grain, while importing 889,000 tons.  A surprise export ban in the
summer of 1846 might have helped avert some deaths, but this is uncertain. 
While it can be argued that the British government could have been more
generous with aid, this is, to a large degree, holding a "caretaker" 19th
century government to the distributional standards of a modern welfare
state.

>=o= There were other factors involved, as well.  British
>landlords disrupted sustainable agricultural practices quite
>a bit.  Some disrupted things simply by drawing property lines
>that had nothing to do with bioregions, and enforcing them
>with their guns.

Ah, yes.  The drawing of a line on a map has been well known to prevent
cultivation of land for miles on either side of said line.  If a fence is
built, this only increases the area of devastation.

>Others were using Irish lands (and the lives
>of Irish people) as testing grounds for their half-assed
>horticultural theories.  The upshot of these factors is that
>they put a lot of people close to famine conditions even
>before the famine arrived.

Malthus has a lot more to do with prefamine conditions than any alleged
"half-assed horticultural theories".  The population of Ireland was over 9
million in 1845.  How much is it today?

My source for the above data is Cormac O' Grada, "The Great Irish Famine",
MacMillan 1989.

Don





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