Potato (Andean Crop)

Timeline

1. c. -8000–1532Highlands around Cuzco · AndesAndean peoples domesticated hundreds of potato varieties above 3,000 meters elevation, and the Inca Empire maintained highland food security through terraces, storage pits (pukyu), and variety rotation, forming an agricultural system independent of Old World grains.
2. 1567–1580Canary Islands · Canary IslandsSpanish colonizers brought potato tubers from the Peru–Chile coast to the Canary Islands for trial cultivation, serving as a transatlantic relay station; by around 1580 stable cultivation existed on the islands, preparing for introduction to continental Europe.
3. 1580–1590Spain and the Low Countries · Western EuropeIn the 1580s potatoes entered Europe through Spanish ports and Flemish merchant networks, initially used mostly as medicine or garden curiosities; small-scale planting began in Ireland, northern Germany, and elsewhere, and while not yet a staple, the routes of spread were established.