Editing Great Famine (Ireland) (section)

===Potato dependency===
[[File:An Irish Peasant Family Discovering the Blight of their Store by Daniel MacDonald.jpg|thumb|upright=1.35|''An Irish Peasant Family Discovering the Blight of their Store'' by Cork artist Daniel MacDonald, {{circa}} 1847]]

The potato was first introduced in Ireland as a garden crop of the [[gentry]]. By the late 17th century, it had become widespread as a supplementary food, but the main [[Irish cuisine|Irish diet]], at that time, was still based on butter, milk, and grain products.{{sfn|Póirtéir|1995|pp=19–20}}

The Irish economy grew between 1760 and 1815 due to infrastructure expansion and the [[Napoleonic Wars]] (1805–1815), which had increased the demand for food in Britain. Tillage increased to such an extent that there was only a small amount of land available to small farmers to feed themselves. The potato was adopted as a primary food source because of its quick growth in a comparatively small space.{{sfn|Ó Gráda|1993|pp=138–144}} By 1800, the potato had become a [[staple food]] for one in three Irish people,{{sfn|Ó Gráda|1993|pp=138–144}} especially in winter. It eventually became a staple year-round for farmers.{{sfn|Póirtéir|1995|p=20}} A disproportionate share of the potatoes grown in Ireland were the [[Irish Lumper]],<ref name="ecologyandsociety.org"/> creating a lack of [[genetic variability]] among potato plants, which increased vulnerability to disease.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://aboutbiodiversity.org/agbdx/eireblight.html|title=The Irish potato famine|access-date=26 December 2011|url-status=dead|publisher=About Biodiversity |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120319153837/http://aboutbiodiversity.org/agbdx/eireblight.html|archive-date=19 March 2012}}</ref>

Potatoes were essential to the expansion of the [[cottier (farmer)|cottier system]]; they supported an extremely cheap workforce, but at the cost of lower living standards. For the labourer, "a potato wage" shaped the expanding agrarian economy.{{sfn|Póirtéir|1995|p=20}} The potato was also used extensively as a fodder crop for livestock immediately prior to the famine. Approximately 33% of production, amounting to {{convert|5000000|ST|t|lk=on|abbr=on}}, was typically used in this way.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Donnelly |first=James S. Jr. |editor=W. E. Vaughan |title=Production, prices and exports, 1846–51 |series=A New History of Ireland |volume=V |year=2010 |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |isbn=978-0-19-957867-2 |page=289 |chapter=XIII}}</ref>