POTATOES

Following the conquest of the Inca civilisation in 1532, the Spanish conquistadors took back to Spain not only all the precious metal they could find, but also the humble potato. Sir Walter Raleigh is credited with introducing the potato to the British Isles. Its use has since spread around the world, to the point where there are, on average, more than 190,000 square kilometres of potatoes under crop every year, producing more than 323 million tonnes.

Potatoes came to Australia with the early European settlers, but it seems they may not have figured in the first attempt at agriculture. In his dispatch of 15 May 1788, Governor Phillip does not mention potatoes as one of the crops proposed for sowing. However, in 1797, Governor Hunter was