Historical record shows that Iraq, Venice, Rome, The Netherlands, Athens and Sumer (Babylonia) responded to food deficiencies with their own resources from distant places. In 500 BC, Athens purchased food from Ukraine, Rome from Africa. The breakdown of long-distance commerce in food has worried Bangladesh, particularly because her neighbours -- India, Myanmar and Bangkok have restricted export of rice in apprehension of world-wide food scarcity. Bangladesh has a landless and incomeless population of about 20 millions, badly crippled, disabled and ailing population of about 20 millions, all of whom need to be healthfully fed free or at subsidized rate.

Against the basic inadequacy of per capita land to meet the increasing demand for school, college, madrasa, varsity and other academic needs, industrial and social-economic projects, Bangladesh is now left with only marginal farmers in sub-divided and fragmented holdings which are not at all capable to taking advantage of modern technology of agricultural growth in any large scale agricultural operation. About 150 years ago, 50 percent of USA farmers (95% of the population) had in their individual ownership consolidated farm lands of at least 1000 acres, 30 percent of farmers had partnership, ownership of at least 400 acres. Today, American farmers constitute only about 4 percent of the population.

Bangladesh suffers from the sub-divided and fragmented land tenureship for which it is not possible to undertake any large scale modern scientific operation. What can we do to overcome this fact of history? We cannot have any large scale agricultural project. Canals, ponds, playgrounds, grazing lands for cattle have substantially disappeared. Above all, the threats of climatic change, earthquake, hurricane, hailstorm etc. and the sea-rise are too dangerous for safe living.

It must be noted that our primitive ancestors enjoyed more varied diet than we do now, because they used to eat various species of plants and several hundred types of living creatures. But only a tiny percentage of these edibles were ever domesticated later. An increase in the amount of food available has occurred in recent centuries in places where the number of farmers has been reduced. The success of modern agriculture has been related not only to its mechanization but to the concurrent decline in the number of those working in it.

Before the 19th century, hardly we knew what food humans needed in order to live. Scientists say that there is a nitrogen component of living plants or animals and that all herbivorous animals build up tissues from protein of plant foods which were converted into muscles and other organs. It was discovered that humans and animals decline in health when they lack in vitamin, even if they have enough of protein.

There is interconnection between food and health, so the precise quantity of calories and proteins needed by people was discovered by scientists. During war or even in peace time, many countries introduce rationing of foodstuff in the interest of proper distribution. Quantity of alcohol, fruits and other supplementary foodstuff, affect the quantum of major/staple food requirement. History of bread made from white wheat or bran removed from wheat makes a difference in quality while rice became alluring. Such difference is looked upon as a privilege of egalitarianism. Russia and USA were the granaries for Europe in the 19th century. The innovation of IRRI brought about a radical change in the quantum of rice production. Bangladesh flourished in the production of irrigated and fertilized boro paddy to meet its rice requirement.

Diversification of agriculture demonstrates the domination of grain or rice upon which the civilization was built. After wheat and rice, potato played an important role with maize among the important crops of the world. Potato is a South American contribution to the world's food. It was taken to Mexico by the Spaniards. Before 1500, potato was grown in the gardens. The first Indian immigrants found wild potato as their best chance of a staple food. They knew potatoes in South America as 'papas' which is still the Spanish word for potato. The potato was represented in the Peruvian pottery as early as 200 AD. It can be stored as well as dried, but it loses a third of its strength after three months.

Potatoes took a long time to become popular outside the Andes. No edible plant had been grown in the Old World from tubers rather than from seeds. No other plant previously had such mysterious, white or flesh-coloured modules. The tubers seemed to people at first, to be deformed, like the feet of lepers. Many, indeed, thought that potato caused leprosy. When that disease vanished, scrofula was attributed to it. The coincidence of the coming of potato to Russia with the major cholera epidemic of the 1830's set back cultivation there for a generation.

Ireland, a country already devastated and impoverished, with old traditions breaking down with the coming of the Anglo-Saxons, was the first European country to grow potato plants seriously. Irish farmers of the 17th century were the first to realize that a quarter acre of land would yield twenty bundle weights of potatoes -- which with a few pigs, could keep a family better than any other crop on so small an area. Potato was first noted in Ireland in 1623. During the next 40 years it established itself. Elsewhere progress was slow. In France, it did not have that much popularity. In Burgundy, potatoes continued to be thought of as a kind of truffle till 1789. Occasional notes suggested a patchy but widespread cultivation on the continent till the late 18th century. It was widely cultivated in Tuscany in the late 16th century. It was still not quite respectable in southern England till 1815. Balkan peasants in the 19th century would not eat "that cursed food hidden in the earth". Even in the 20th century there were educated people who regarded the potato as 'sheer poison'.

Still, from the late 18th century, a good deal of propaganda was lavished by enlightened governments in an attempt to encourage the use of potato. It was served ostentatiously at the table of a French minister of the time. Frederick the Great was successful in the end to persuade his subjects to grow potato substantially. It became the characteristic crop of the enlightenment, when cultivation of potato in the garden of an eminent retired person was referred to by Voltaire. In England, potato was widely cultivated in the north of the coal line. Adman Smith predicted that potato might replace wheat as the mainstay for the poor. He also thought that the strongest men and the most beautiful women of Britain (that is, the Irish) all lived on that root. A historian of the potato plant (Professor Radelife Salaman) once argued that the widespread cultivation of the plant saved mankind from starvation. Peasants were impressed since it thrived when wheat harvest failed. Potatoes also contributed a good deal both to cattle and to industrial alcohol during the 19th century. One could safely say that all prejudices were overcome after a careful examination of the potential quality of potato as a food for humans in the main.

The blight of 1840 destroyed tubers as well as leaves; as a result, potato harvest had failed. This failure led to starvation, scurvy, dysentery, cholera and typhus. It particularly hurt Ireland where people lived around the potato. The Irish population dropped sharply. Anybody who could afford left for USA (three and a half million Irish people left the country between 1851-1946). The Irish experienced that a small plot of land for potato could support a family. Failure of potato cultivation in Ireland for some years created famine which induced Irish men folk to marry late. Ever since one could see about 33.5 per cent of Irish males remained unmarried between 45-54. The population of Northern Ireland which was 8,75,000 in 1840 became 4,367,000 in 1980. In the United States, the gold rush brought potato and pioneers in Colorado by about 1824. When the Colorado beetle provided threat, the crop went eastward. The beetle alarmed Europe and led to banning of USA potato for some time.

Despite its heavy protein, the potato is still one of the main foods in the world over in more than 30 countries. When a grain crop fails, people can fall on potato.

Adaptation of potato to the modern world has made great stride in the worldwide food crisis of our generation. It may be noticed that habits die hard. So, a sort of habit forming propagation is necessary. Bangladesh with its limited farm land is perhaps best suited to meet the growing need of food in the highly potential growth of potato in small patches of fertilized land. Potato cultivation in large scale in small and fragmented and sub-divided land-tenure system is not a strange idea if such cultivation can be popularized. The most important aspect of the change of habit to eat potato as a food should commence with the affluent who can afford to bear expenses of potato preparations. Such a programme gradually may attract the poor, illiterate masses who have been for centuries used to eating rice up to the full capacity of the stomach. Doctors may say if potato eating as staple food in Bangladesh would be nice or not. In Bangladesh, we have used so far potato as a vegetable to cook fish/meat. How much success can be achieved in eating potato as a staple will depend upon well-considered opinion of doctors only.

Abdul Khaleque is a Retd IG Police and Secretary.