Academic Reading
The remarkable potato
AThe potato was first cultivated thousands of years ago in the Andes mountains of South America, where farmers grew hundreds of varieties suited to the cold, high land. Spanish explorers brought the potato to Europe in the sixteenth century, though at first many people were suspicious of it.
BIn time, the potato became one of the world's most important foods. Cheap to grow and rich in energy, it could feed large populations from small plots of land. Its importance also brought risks: when disease destroyed the potato crop in Ireland in the 1840s, a terrible famine followed.