When the United Nations declared 2008 to be the International Year of the Potato, the announcement received little media attention, apart from a few sniggers. Had the UN gone crazy? Had it run out of truly worthy causes to celebrate? Was this the consensus-driven brainchild of some committee, perhaps, which had rejected any and all more contentious candidates? And just what had the potato done for us lately, in any case?

Wait a moment. The humble potato might well be the Clark Kent of the vegetable world — mild-mannered and unlikely to excite attention — but it’s also single-handedly helped to shape the development of the modern world. Without the potato, it’s unlikely that Europe would have risen to global supremacy as it did between 1750 and 1900, or that — ultimately — the First World War would have happened.

So let’s hear it for the spud.

In terms of global production, the potato currently ranks No. 4 among food crops, behind maize (corn), wheat and rice. It’s grown and consumed in all regions of the world. The so-called “developed world” (i.e. Europe and North America) accounts for 48 per cent of all potato production and 41 per cent of total consumption. In per capita terms, however, North Americans and Europeans eat two to three times more potatoes than the global average. What was once looked down upon as food fit only for pigs and peasants is now truly a staple of the post-industrial diet.

Potatoes are almost unparalleled in their nutritional value. A single potato provides half the daily recommended intake of vitamin C and one-fifth the required potassium. It’s also a source of vitamins B1, B3 and B6, phosphorous, magnesium, antioxidants and fibre that help prevent disease. High in protein and low in fat, almost 85 per cent of each potato is edible, compared to just 50 per cent for most grains.

And yet recognition of the potato’s dietary worth is relatively recent, and the tuber itself gained acceptance only slowly among Americans and Europeans since its discovery. Spanish conquistadores were the first to come across the potato as they crossed the Incan empire of Peru in search of gold in the 1530s. Even though it had been cultivated by the indigenous population for perhaps 4,000 years, the Spanish invaders initially dismissed the plant’s value. Indeed, even when they began to ship it across the Atlantic by the 1570s, it was primarily intended as a cheap food for hospital inmates.

The potato was not widely cultivated in Europe until the 1700s. In part, this was due to its stigma as animal fodder (used especially to feed pigs), but also its reputation as a member of the deadly nightshade family of plants. Exposed to sunlight for too long, potatoes turn green and bitter and, if subsequently eaten, can cause illness or even death. However, the potato possessed a number of distinctly positive qualities that eventually overcame this initial resistance.

First, potatoes readily adapted to new environments and even flourished in the cool, damp climate of northern Europe. At the same time, they took relatively little skill or knowledge to grow or harvest.

A second benefit at first sight appears to be a disadvantage. Compared to grains — which could be stored for several years — potatoes do not survive storage for more than a few months and are susceptible to moulds and other fungi. As such, this would appear to limit the potato’s value.

However, the 1600s and 1700s were a period of intense and almost continuous warfare in Europe and, by extension, in North America. As troops marched back and forth across the continent they would routinely requisition grain supplies from local villages in order to feed themselves. As a result, many communities faced a constant threat of enforced starvation. However, those which had adopted the potato could leave the tubers in the ground, digging them up only as required. This compelled hungry troops either to forage for potatoes themselves or to move on to neighbouring villages where grain was available.

The result of this was dramatic. From the 1600s onwards, every military campaign in Europe actually resulted in an increased acreage of potatoes being grown, such was their value. This trend continued until the Second World War. What’s more, as potatoes yield on average two to four times more calories per hectare than grain, it became easier — and in turn cheaper — to sustain a growing population of labourers, many of whom (again in turn) were employed to grow even more potatoes. And so the cycle of population growth continued.

By the late 1700s, the potato had become a mainstream crop in North America, France, Austria, Poland, Russia, Germany, Italy and — most significantly — Ireland. Only in England, where wheat remained king and the backbone of the first industrial nation, did the potato remain a supplement rather than a staple. Dependency on a single source of food was dangerous, of course. During the Irish Potato Famine in the mid-1840s, millions starved or fled the country when the harvest was decimated by blight.

Even more dangerous, perhaps, was the shift in global power that the potato helped to fuel by the late 1800s. As historian William McNeill wrote in the article “How the Potato Changed the World’s History,” “It is certain that without potatoes, Germany could not have become the leading industrial and military power of Europe after 1848, and no less certain that Russia could not have loomed so threateningly on Germany’s eastern border after 1891.”

In short, but for the potato the conditions for the First World War might not have come about. A heavy burden to bear, perhaps, but in its international year, let’s at least give the spud the recognition it deserves.

David Bright has published widely on Canadian social, labour and criminal justice history. He teaches history and politics at Niagara College, Ontario.