Shadows of the Irish Famine
- July 29, 2009 11:08 AM |
- By Kevin Yarr
By Kevin Yarr, CBCNews.ca
The disease that led to the crash of the potato harvest in Ireland in the 1840s still haunts farmers in the 21st century.
The fungus first appears on the potato leaves. (CBC)
Late blight is a fungus. Its spores spread on the wind, settling on the leaves of potato plants (it can also affect tomatoes). The leaves turn black, and the infection spreads down into the potatoes, rotting and leaving them inedible.
Prince Edward Island has been having the same damp, cool summer weather as many other parts of the country. It's not very good for tourism, and it's not good for potato farming either. Being a fungus, late blight thrives in this weather. The Island has been fortunate in recent years with late blight cases being counted in single digits. This year there have already been 30.
It's a problem across the eastern half of the continent.
Unlike what happened in the 19th century, that doesn't mean we're facing a failure of the potato crop. Modern agricultural techniques can control the spread of blight, but those controls come at a price.
First there is the literal cost. When late blight is in the air, farmers need to spray fungicides regularly - every three or four days. They spray this frequently because the fungicide is only effective if it is covering the leaf. At this time of year the plants are growing quickly, and the new leaves need to be sprayed. All that fungicide is expensive.
Then there is the environmental cost. Fungicides to control late blight are the most common pesticides sprayed on potato crops.
Researchers with Agriculture Canada are working on better ways to control late blight. They're cross-breeding ancient potato varieties from Peru, which have high late blight resistance, with commercial varieties in the hopes of creating commercial breeds that can resist the fungus.
Unfortunately, currently some of the most popular commercial varieties, such as Yukon gold, are highly susceptible to late blight.
Until research finds a better answer, fungicides - and hoping for some dry, hot weather - will remain the most common defences against late blight.
About the Authors
- Elizabeth Bridge is a producer with CBC's Digital Archives project. She got her start in the kitchen baking brownies and making fudge but is still trying to get pastry right.
- Andrea Chiu
is an associate producer at CBC Radio Digital. Though she loves to eat, cook and discuss food,
don't ask her to bake. It never turns out well. She tweets as @TOfoodie on Twitter and organizes food and wine events in Toronto called FoodieMeet.
- Amber Hildebrandt
works for CBCNews.ca in Toronto. Growing up on a farm in Manitoba, she acquired an insatiable appetite, but it was during a stint in Japan that she developed her discerning tastebuds and foodie ways.
- Tara Kimura
is a multimedia producer for CBCNews.ca.
- Andree Lau
is a CBC web reporter in Calgary. Her journalism career includes seven years as a CBC-TV reporter. Her own blog called "are you gonna eat that?" chronicles her eating adventures (including sampling snake and camel hoof tendon).
- Jessica Wong
is a CBCNews.ca writer who loves to eat and cook, as well as discuss, read and watch programming about food, sometimes all at once.
- Kevin Yarr
, CBCNews.ca's writer in Prince Edward Island, wrote about food and beer for national and regional magazines before joining the CBC. He acquired a desire for new tastes on his first trip to Europe, and an appreciation of eating locally and in season when he finally settled down on P.E.I.
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Comments (3)
Well, maybe more of those nifty Peruvian potatoes could just come to market as is - there are some lovely fingerlings and purple potatoes available at produce markets out here, and they are just as nice as the standard mass market varieties. If enough blight-tolerant varieties are grown for a while in rotation with other potatoes, maybe the fungus will become less prevalent and less fungicide will be necessary.
Maybe they should try spraying with a solution of H202 Hydrogen Peroxide it seems to work wonders and is non toxic to the plant and consumers. Depending on the original strength safety measures should be taken but I have had excellent results with it on mold and fungus. Also very cheap.
Late blight is a serious problem, especially because to the increase in monoculture potato farming. Many of the "heritage" varieties are either immune or strongly resistant but they are not allowed in commercial farms. So, thanks to central government planning, another part of our food supply is at risk.
While the Irish potato blight famine was a tragic event, but what is always glossed over is why it was so bad for the Irish. They were starved beacuse all they were allowed to eat was potatoes. All the grains were owned by the British and shipped out of the country. Politics was the root cause [pun intended] of the famine. That is the real crime.