How the humble potato helped bring peace in war-split Europe

Tuber brought on an agricultural revolution

A vegetable vendor waits for customers behind a stack of potatoes at a market in Beijing, 12 October 2007. Potatoes may soon join rice as a staple diet for China's 1.3 billion people as the nation searches for alternative crops to deal with a sharp decline in farmland, state press reported 11 October as China is facing increasing difficulties in feeding its massive population, partly due to the widespread conversion of its farming areas into industrial zones and residential areas, as well as the impacts of global warming. AFP PHOTO/TEH ENG KOON

The humble potato — drought-resistant, able to thrive in diverse soils and enjoyed fried, steamed or baked — brought centuries of relative calm and prosperity to Europe after its introduction in the 16th century, a new study says.

The crop, discovered in Latin America in the 1400s before eventually sweeping through Europe, greatly boosted productivity, helping lower land costs while improving nutrition and raising wages, from peasants up to the ruling classes, according to the study for the National Bureau of Economic Research.

The blessings that flowed from this agricultural revolution helped ease the economic and societal pressures that can lead to costly and disastrous conflicts, says the report. The introduction of potatoes and the resultant increase in productivity “dramatically reduced conflict” both within and between states for some two centuries, it says. The researchers, who examined 2,477 battles fought in 899 wars over a 500-year period, drew two key conclusions. The first is linked to the declining value of land on which potatoes are grown.

Land value fell

According to the study, the value of the land on which potatoes were grown fell with advances in productivity. Populations were able to feed themselves on ever smaller amounts of land.

“Conflicts declined when the value of the object for which one was fighting decreased,” the study says.

Increases in farmers’ incomes, often due to much bigger and more reliable harvests, boosted tax revenues for the state, providing added governmental stability and thereby helping to “buy” the peace, the report states.

To risk losing these resources — for workers and for political leaders — represented a financial danger that states were less and less willing to risk, resulting in “a decline in peasant revolts and civil wars,” the study said.

It had become “too expensive to engage in combat.”

The analysis does not detail the impact of specific wars or conflicts but says that most of those studied took place on the borders of modern-day Austria, France, Russia and Turkey. Others were in the Near East and North Africa.