The Potato- Spud we like
IT IS the world's fourth-most-important food crop, after maize, wheat and rice.
It provides more calories, more quickly, using less land
and in a wider range of climates than any other plant.
It is, of course, the potato.
Friedrich Engels declared it to be the equal of iron for its "historically revolutionary role".
The United Nations has declared 2008 the International Year of the Potato .
The potato's unusual history means it is well worth celebrating because it is intertwined with economic development, trade liberalisation and globalisation.
It promoted economic development by underpinning the industrial revolution in England in the 19th century.
It provided a cheap source of calories and was easy to cultivate, so it liberated workers from the land.
In the form of French fries, served alongside burgers and Coca-Cola, potatoes are now an icon of globalisation.
This is quite a turnaround given the scepticism which first greeted them on their arrival in the Old World in the 16th century. Spuds were variously thought to cause leprosy, to be fit only for animals, to be associated with the devil or to be poisonous. They took hold in 18th-century Europe only when war and famine meant there was nothing else to eat; people then realised just how versatile and reliable they were.
Adam Smith, one of the potato's many admirers, observed at the time, "The very general use which is made of potatoes in these kingdoms as food for man is a convincing proof that the prejudices of a nation, with regard to diet, however deeply rooted, are by no means unconquerable."
Mashed, fried, boiled and roast, a humble tuber changed the world, and free-trading globalisers everywhere should celebrate it.
