How Potatoes Grow Underground

https://tube.blueben.net/w/goqtys2FzTZSkNtqBP3QeD

Good News: the Global Potato Industry Dictionary now available, finally offering the rest of us definitions for terms from 'Solanum Tuberosum Andigenum' to 'Yukon Gold'

https://www.potatonewstoday.com/2026/03/23/new-specialist-reference-work-launched-for-the-global-potato-sector-the-global-potato-industry-dictionary-now-available/?utm_source=fark&utm_medium=website&utm_content=link&utm_campaign=fark&ICID=ref_fark

#food #agriculture #dictionary #potatoes #cool

20 year potato exclusivity deal killed by Republicans. I hope Idaho Republican voters are enjoying all this winning as they lose their farms to bankruptcy.

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/business/canada-export-potatoes-mexico/

#republicans #trump #potatoes #mexico #canada #usa #trade #tariffs

My spare time is quite often dominated by temporary niche obsessions. What can I say, I like learning new things.

A while back, this obsession was making tasty hasselback potatoes. But the thing is... every time I was almost done perfectly slicing a potato, I would invariably cut through the whole thing...

I get it, just get "good" right? Or... you let your design & engineering brain run away with it, waste a whole weekend, and design a tool to do the job.

Turns out my solution is kinda different from what others have been doing. (The benefit of skipping research I suppose.) So I decided to publish it then.

It's downloadable for free from Makerworld if you have a 3d printer. And when enough people keep downloading I can keep coming up with solutions to problems that don't REALY need solving.

Link: https://makerworld.com/en/models/1877936-hasselback-potato-tool-with-case#profileId-2010659

#3dprinting #hasselback #potatoes

Today in Labor History March 17, 1846: The first group of famine refugees left Dublin for New York. Over the next few years, over 1 million refugees would flee the country. Another 1 million would die in Ireland. And it was completely avoidable. The reason given for the famine was the failure of the potato crops, due to infestation with Late Blight (Phytophthora infestans), a mold that affects some varieties of potatoes. However, anyone who is paying attention ought to ask: Why would the failure of a single crop cause over 1 million people to starve to death? There was no drought causing the failure of all crops. Nor was there a war, nor any of the other usual culprits. No, it was because the vast majority of Irish people were tenant farmers, required to give away the most valuable food and textiles they produced to their wealthy, absentee landlords. In exchange, they were granted the right to live on the land and to maintain a small plot of the rockiest, boggiest, least productive land on the property for growing food for their own families, land upon which potatoes were one of the only crops they were able to grow in abundance. That and the fact that they were growing a monoculture that was susceptible to the blight. Despite the fact that the blight did spread throughout the world, it did not wipe out the spud crops in Peru, for example, where potatoes were first domesticated, and where hundreds of different varieties were still being grown, many of which having resistance to the plague. Prior to the introduction of potatoes, in the 1700s, the diet of low-income Irish consisted primarily of dairy and grain products.

The British Whig government refused to help, arguing that under Laissez-faire capitalism, the markets would naturally correct themselves and ultimately bring down the price of food. Many governments, including the Queen of England, and international charities, made financial donations to the people of Ireland, but these donations didn’t come close to providing sufficient funds to feed the vast number of starving people. Sultan Khaleefah Abdul-Majid, leader of the Ottoman Empire which, at the time, included Palestine, was one of the largest contributors to the relief effort. However, the Queen of England demanded that he decrease his donation so as to not embarrass her by offering more than her, which he initially had.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #famine #ireland #potatoes #peru #poverty

Tatties

https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://theorkneynews.scot/2026/03/16/tatties/