Me: Given the mountainous nature of the region in which potatoes originated, it seems reasonable that potatoes ought be well adapted to grow well in grow under such conditions anywhere, provided that they are adequately watered and the soil conditions are also right. Here is another quote, also from Groliers Encyclopedia that supports that conclusion:

"Potatoes are the fourth-largest world crop, surpassed only by wheat, rice, and corn. The leading potato-growing countries in the mid-1990s were China, Russia, Poland, Ukraine, and the United States. The leading U.S. states, in order of production, were Idaho, Washington, Colorado, and Maine."

I was surprised to find that China was now the world's leading producer. One doesn't normally associate potatoes with China! As you may know, Ireland is also famous for its potatoes. So famous, in fact, that the common potato came to be known as the Irish potato despite the fact that they originally came from the Peruvian Andes! Check out this quote!

"Because the plant grows well in cool, moist areas and is a reliable, uncomplicated crop, potatoes soon became a major food staple, particularly in Ireland. (Today the vegetable is often called the 'Irish' potato, to distinguish it from the unrelated sweet potato.) When a potato blight caused the crop to fail (1845-47), about 1 million people perished in Ireland and an equal number emigrated. Immigrants had already brought the potato to North America by then, and it was first grown in volume in Londonderry, N.H., in 1719."

I find it interesting that potatoes came to North America via European immigrants rather than directly from South America, where they originated. They became a staple crop in parts of Europe more than a century before farmers in North America started growing them, and were probably thought by them, at first, to have originated there. They are also a major crop in Denmark, and in my own native country, Norway, as well as a major staple in Germany and probably most other European countries.

Bahman:
More interesting than all that is what your PS claims:

"Another interesting tidbit of information from the same source: " According to food experts, a diet of potatoes and milk will supply all the nutrients the human body needs."

Is this really really true? It sounds to me to come from vegeterians!!

Me: It is consistent with what I had already read previously about potatoes from other sources I don't now recall. According to these sources, potato starch is particular easy for human digestive systems to assimilate, and potato protein, while relatively low in quantity, is very high in quality and also very easy for our digestive systems to assimilate. The Groliers article also pointed out that potatoes have most of the vitamins necessary for human nutrition, including vitamin C. What essential nutrients potatoes don't have, milk apparently does, thus the claim that "According to food experts, a diet of potatoes and milk will supply all the nutrients the human body needs." This, plus the fact that potatoes are easy to cultivate, goes a long way towards explaining why the Irish converted so much of their crop land into growing potatoes that a devastating famine killing more than a million people by starvation resulted when virtually their entire crop was destroyed by the infamous potato blight in the Nineteenth Century.

I would not want to subsist on a diet of only potatoes and milk, however. As much as I like potatoes and milk, I would very quickly grow tired of them if that was all I had to eat! I also suspect that some of the vitamins in potatoes are low enough in quantity that in order to get enough of them to satisfy human nutritional requirements from potatoes alone, we would have to eat so much of them that we might have severe obesity problems!

Gunnar