Irish Potato Famine

Dr. Vandana Shiva warns that the monocrops that Monsanto is imposing on the world threaten both ecocide and genocide. She reports that 10,000 Indian farmers have committed suicide each year since Monsanto's BT cotton was imposed on them. The total is now over 300,000 farmers.

However, the Irish Potato Famine of the 19th century should have taught the world the dangers of relying on mono crops. The Inca originally cultivated the potato and still grow a wide variety to ensure that they will have food under all weather conditions and other adverse events. So, they were unaffected by the potato blight that wiped out the potatoes in Ireland. However, millions of Irish starved to death and millions more were forced to emigrate to survive.

The graphics below show how dire the situation became. The Irish Potato Famine goes into more detail. The Table of Contents is shown below. Unfortunately, the world has failed to learn from this recent disaster. In fact, with Monsanto's mono crops threatening the entire world's food supply, the scale of devastation will be unprecedented unless we reverse course soon.

We cannot afford to allow the short-sighted greed of Monsanto and a few other chemical companies to destroy the biodiversity protects the health and survival of billions of people.

However, only a short window of opportunity is left now to turn this crisis around. What each person does each day will help determine our individual and collective fate.

Millions of impoverished Irish left for America and Canada. Millions more suffered and died in Ireland. Had they just planted a wider variety of potatoes, this massive tragedy would not have happened. They could have easily weathered the blight in one potato crop -- like the Inca.

The world must not forget this harsh lesson now.