Potato Famine
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Potato famine may mean or refer to:
Background
The potato famines of the mid 19th century arose from an infestation of potato blight, Phytophthora infestans, which spread across Europe in the 1840s. Wherever the potato crop was lost, its effect was widely felt – in France and England for example. However, the nature of agriculture in Ireland, Norway, Sweden and the Scottish Highlands meant that in these places the proportion of the food supply normally in the form of potatoes was much greater than where the soils were better and the climate less wet. The loss was therefore much more keenly felt than it was where other foods were available in the first season and other crops could subsequently be planted, so restoring a full supply of carbohydrate food in later years.
In both the Highlands and Lowlands of Scotland and in Ireland, this was not so readily possible owing to soils, climate and in many cases, lack of capital for investment in new seed-stock and methods.
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