Potato as a European Crop

Timeline

1. 1560–1580Spain · SpainSpanish colonists brought potato tubers back from Peru and Chile to Europe, initially cultivating them as horticultural curiosities in court and monastery gardens, not yet entering the common food system.
2. 1661–1670Dutch Republic · NetherlandsThe potato spread to Central Europe through networks of Low Countries agronomists and merchants; by the 1660s small farmers in the Rhineland, Burgundy, and elsewhere were experimenting with it as a supplementary crop in famine years.
3. 1680–1700Ireland · IrelandThe potato yielded high and reliable harvests in Ireland's damp climate; by around 1700 it had become the staple food of lower-class farmers, supporting rapid population growth, while Scandinavia and Poland also began large-scale cultivation at the same time.