Brief History of Potato Growing in the UK

The potato came from South America in Elizabethan times, arriving in Spain around 1570. Adventurers associated with Drake and Raleigh may have introduced it to Britain and Ireland in 1586 but it is not currently fashionable to say so! The herbalist, Gerard was certainly growing potatoes in London by 1597. A tiny fraction of the genetic potential of the many species grown in South America ended up in Europe in the form we now know as Solanum tuberosum. The potato stayed in the hands of academic botanists and herbalists for many years. Huge changes in land tenure all over Europe in the 18th Century led to the displacement of a large number of people. They needed a food which was cheap, nutritious, easy to grow and which would crop well enough on the small pieces of land available to rent. Industrialization, which led to the development of towns, also led to pressures to develop cheaper, non-grain foods which could be easily stored, easily transported, did not need expensive processing and could be cooked quickly and cheaply.
 
Irish peasants were the first Europeans to grow and eat large quantities of potatoes in the 17th Century. Other peasant cultures all over Europe gradually discovered that the potato was wholesome and sustaining. The grain shortage, which was one of the fundamental causes of the French Revolution (“let them eat cake” etc.), led to French peasants, reluctantly at first, growing the tuber promoted by the famous M. Parmentier.
 
The north west of England was the first part of mainland Britain to try potatoes. Scots were relatively slow to embrace them but, when they did, a culture of variety breeding quickly developed. The new homesteaders in the developing United States of America found potatoes very useful.

By the end of the 18th Century, potatoes were grown fairly universally in fields, gardens and allotments. A common name for an allotment was “potato plot”. In Britain and much of Europe the start of the modern industrial age can be marked by the point in time when the potato became the mainstay of main course cooking.
 
The famine caused by blight in 1845 and 1846 in Ireland and other areas all over northern Europe (including the Highlands and Islands of Scotland) had an enormous effect which still has political repercussions today. It also led to an increase in effort by individual gardeners and small farmers to develop new varieties with increased blight resistance, particularly in the USA and Scotland. The first really early potato varieties were developed in the USA in the 1860s. A seed potato industry was started in Scotland where the climate kept the aphid vector of virus disease down to low levels. About 70% of British varieties were produced by Scots. Into the early 20th Century the first government seed potato certification was established in Scotland.

Showing potatoes started in mid Victorian times. There is a persistent story that the first items ever shown by the Royal Horticultural Society were potatoes. The efficient and cheap postal service of the time led to the development of several mail order catalogues featuring potatoes. One catalogue claimed to have 500 different varieties. There was a point in 1903 when new varieties were seen as being so valuable that small initial samples were sold for their weight in gold. Home-grown potatoes were extraordinarily important during the two World Wars in supplying the population with basic food requirements. The careful planning of home agriculture particularly with regard to potato growing was a feature of British strategy for survival which is seldom given the recognition it deserves.

As the result of this history there is sophisticated and systematic production of potatoes in the UK. It starts with the breeding of new varieties by individuals, companies or government breeding stations. Small amounts of disease-free, very high grade seed tubers of varieties old and new are grown on licensed farms. These are used to produce larger amounts of basic seed tubers with little or no disease on other approved farms. These end up in fields of ware farms, gardens and allotments. WCF Phoenix started as a farmers’ cooperative. We have unparalleled knowledge and experience of the whole production system. We are uniquely qualified to bring a huge number of certified varieties in appropriate packaging with complete and appropriate plant passport labelling to every area of the horticultural market place.

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