The potatoes introduction into Europe proves to be one of the most significant examples of a foreign food crop being able to extensively affect the lives of a an Old World Population. Before the assimilation of the potato crop into the majority of Rupee’s agricultural landscape, peasant populations constantly faced famines while current food sources provided little nutritional value and were not efficient sources of energy. As Europe adopted the brown tuber, people were provided with a far more beneficial food source capable of instigating and sustaining massive population expansion.
This in turn allowed for further technological and political advancements that would have been nearly impossible if European populations had continued to depend on the unreliable wheat and grains that previously capitalized European agriculture. L The potatoes essential supply of sustenance as well as the superior nutritional content and energy provided by the starchy tuber, allowed for the development of a large and growing workforce during Ethel 8th century. This exponential growth in population enabled Europe to rapidly industrialized and helped establish Europe as a dominant world superpower.
Rupee’s primary reliance on grains such as wheat, barley, and oats prior to the potatoes introduction was insufficient towards maintaining healthy populations and unreliable in providing a constant food source. Populations who cultivated grains as staple crops in the 1 5th and 16th centuries were often plagued by famine due to the large fallow period that followed each harvest as well as the large amount of work and land required by the dominant food crops.
The incompetent amount of labor needed to cultivate, plant, and harvest plots of grain combined with the crops insufficient calories and lack of duration resulted in high mortality rates of roughly 30% across Europe. 3 Furthermore, without the caloric intake or nourishment needed to bear children, fertility and birth rates remained desperately low. Due to a lack of adequate food sources, the majority of European inhabitants had to devote their entire existences to their ability to feed themselves and stay alive.
It was not until the 18th century that the widespread cultivation of the potato proved capable of not only providing for larger populations, but for encouraging the development of new investments outside the agricultural spectrum. The Potato was first introduced in the late 16th century from the Inca civilization by King Phillips imperial ships. The New World crop was first brought into Italy as well as the Low Countries, France and Ireland. While initial European reaction was characterized with suspicion and weary allegations, the crop continued to gain foundations in small garden plots.
The potatoes first major role in European agriculture in the 17th century were as safeguards against crop failure in smaller plots of land outside the routine-based open fields. Due to the ideal climate and detrimental starvation that faced the assenter, Ireland became the first country to accept the potato as a staple crop. An almost immediate end to famines in Ireland encouraged the potato to be accepted in the neighboring states and soon across all of Europe. It was not until the beginning of the 18th century however, that potatoes broke through gardening fences to become field crops, able to significantly enlarge food supply.
Because potatoes could De planted on Tallow plots In Detente pergolas AT grain cultivation, total T production from given crops of land were maximized for the first time, leading Europe to outstrip the rate of population growth in any other anciently civilized lands by the 18th century. While other states in both East and Western Europe were secured with the near elimination of food shortages due to the larger yields of both potatoes and other crops, mortality rates decreased while populations skyrocketed and growth rates peaked.
Ultimately, the large cultivation of the potato provided a cushion against famine that proved remarkably advantageous, as it successfully sustained and provided for entire European villages and cities for the first time. Thus, the potatoes major contribution in establishing a full-fledged food source resulted in exponential population growth across Europe due to minimized mortality rates. One of the potatoes further affects of sustaining and increasing European populations was during natural disasters and wartime.
Common natural disasters that plagued Europe including floods and storms were detrimental to previous staple crops of grain due to the delicate stalks. The potato crop was largely resistant to these catastrophes due to their hardy quality and cultivation underground. As the potato came common in European agriculture, major fields of staple crops were at less risk of being destroyed, resulting in an even more secure food source. During wartime the potato had a similar role as an anti- famine crop.
In the War of Austrian succession, Frederick the Great of Prussia ordered the spread of the tubers throughout his kingdom, which later demonstrated the potatoes availableness in keeping peasants alive in times of requisitioning and devastation. Due to the widespread cultivation of the potato crop, peasant populations were not only sustained, but even during the later Seven Years War Fredrick’s subjects avoided assister through consumption of the potato. Soon invading armies such as France, Russia, and Austria realized the resiliency that potatoes provided to a state’s population.
The increased cultivation of potatoes across Europe ensured that no war up until WWW was as destructive as the Thirty Years War, due to the human cost of military requisitioning. In all, the potato lessened the destructiveness of disaster, especially war following its introduction. As the tuber’s cultivation spread throughout the 18th century the potato provided entirely new food reserves capable of enabling he rapid recovery and survival of villages and larger cities.
The introduction of the potato served as the basis for reducing catastrophe across Europe so that populations would gradually attain the luxury of an ever-present food source that encouraged further growth rates in population. As potatoes became a major part of European diets, population rates were also further heightened due to improved nutrition capable of combating major diseases. Potatoes unlike any other staple crop provided nearly all important vitamins and minerals necessary for the ideal health of a European inhabitant.
When eaten as the sole article of day-to-day meals, which was often the case among peasantry, the potato was able to support life like better than any other crop. The potato provided Vitamin C, a necessary deterrent of scurvy that was absent in all previous European staple crops. Furthermore other fatal diseases such, measles, tuberculosis and dysentery were substantially reduced and even eliminated by potato consumption. In particularly Ireland, the common diet consisting of nothing more than potatoes and milk, provided sufficient amounts of all nutrients Wendell allowing Tort completely inanely succulence.
I nee wiseacres consumption of the potato major increased population after becoming one of the sole providers of vital nutrition needed to prevent major diseases and mortality in 17th and 18th century Europe. The tuber’s introduction into Europe proved absolutely necessary for increasing the European population not only by reducing widespread grain shortages, but also by combating major diseases and nutritional deficiencies that had been so detrimental in previous centuries.
Rupee’s industrialization and world domination in the late 18th century was accomplished armorial due to the health benefits of the potato that instigated rapid population growth. In a study conducted at Cambridge University researchers concluded that 22% of the witnessed post-1700 increase in population growth could be attributed solely to the introduction of the potato into Europe while 47% of the post-1700 increase in the average arbitration rate could be explained by the potatoes integration into Rupee’s agricultural system.
Because the potato had increased in agricultural productivity by the 18th century, peasants were often allowed to migrate onto cities to work in Industry while others would be enlisted in imperial armies. These new waves of arbitration, industrialization, and military buildup would be the definite factors in developing later technological and economic advancement. The fact that the potato increased both population and productivity in the domain of agriculture meant that populations, no longer threatened with the looming possibility of starvation could focus more on other interests regarding technology, industry and expansion.
The recent increase in European population, ultimately allowed for rammers to spill into the cities, improving the industrial aspect of European while governments could afford to enlist more soldiers. The new working force that was utilized is alternate sources of labor was sustained through the rich energy and subsistence provided by the potato. Ambitious efforts that accommodated rapid industrialization in England and Germany as well as the foreign campaigns engaged by major European powers were largely accomplished through the cheap and plentiful energy provided by the starch rich tuber.
Furthermore, the new abundance of potato, provide cheap and easily prepared subsistence in a time when arbitration often led to poverty and longer working hours. The introduction of the potato proved to be the crucial basis of the population expansion and agricultural enhancement that spread across Europe. These benefits ultimately allowed for the rapid industrialization and military conquest launched by select European nations.
Ultimately the technology and production methods that far outsourced any other continent as well as the unmatched imperial armies able to easily conquer civilizations in Africa India and the Americas truly gained Europe its designation as the dominant world superpower. The potatoes impact on Europe shortly after its introduction was largely advantageous while its implications would last throughout the 18th century and beyond. A previously ineffective food source dominated by nutritionally insufficient and quantitatively unreliable grain caused the potatoes assimilation into European agriculture to have major effects on population.
Because the of potatoes advantages regarding its efficient cultivation as well as its benefits in times of disaster and war, the brown tuber substantially increased populations especially during the 18th century. The nutritional superiority of the potato impaired to any previous staple crop Turner ten alee ten expansion AT population especially in Ireland, due to the reduction and solution to sources of mortality.
Ultimately, as populations and cheap energy sources were significantly increased, people successfully industrialization and enlisted in imperial armies. This ultimately secured Rupee’s position as a dominant world power and commenced a new era in world history, largely characterized by an effective European working force and prosperity throughout Europe.
