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  • From: KAKerby AT aol.com
  • To: market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Now......GMO sweet corn
  • Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2011 09:25:19 -0400 (EDT)

Ireland exported both wheat and corn to Great Britain during the vast majority of the famine years, and most years they were able to meet their export quotas even during the heights of the famine.  And the potato famine was not a single event - waves of famine swept the Emerald Isle for almost 75 years - an entire generation.  Long story short, it was a classic tenant farmer situation where the growers were on contract to grow export crops with the majority of their lands, and food crops with the leftovers.  They were also given "improved" seed stock for food crops and required to use those rather than locally developed varieties.  If they met their production quotas, they stayed.  If they didn't, they lost their lease, went into town to work and someone else got the land.  The only times that districts failed to meet export quotas were when there were simply not enough people anymore to work that particular area.  I'm glossing over a lot but that was the gist of it.
 
My great grandfather walked off the family farm at the age of 24 with nothing but the clothes on his back and enough money in his pocket for that one-way ticket.  He sailed from Limerick in 1898 and never went back.  He married a relative (first cousin actually) who had come over either right before or right after he did.  The entire extended family stayed in the Brooklyn/Yonkers area until my father moved to Denver in the 1960's.  I'm the first one in the family to return to the land, four generations later.  I sometimes wonder what my great grandfather would say if he could walk our land and talk with me about his experiences.  I debate whether he'd encourage me to stay with ag, or shake his head and tell me it's not worth the heartache.  Hard call. 
Kathryn Kerby
frogchorusfarm.com
Snohomish, WA
 
In a message dated 9/22/2011 5:32:14 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time, vaspencer AT sisna.com writes:
Hear, hear!  Thank you Kathryn!  I have heard, can you verify--that
Ireland exported wheat during the potato famine?

Vern
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