Hi, I'm the main content of the page!!! blah blah cur from the United States to Uruguay and Chile[1]. Genetic testing of the wide variety of cultivars and wild species suggest that the potato has a single origin in the area of southern Peru,[2] from a species in the Solanum brevicaule complex. However, although Peru is essentially the birthplace of the potato, today over 99% of all cultivated potatoes worldwide are descendants of a subspecies indigenous to south-central Chile.[3] Based on historical records, local agriculturalists, and DNA analyses, the most widely cultivated variety worldwide, Solanum tuberosum tuberosum, is believed to be indigenous to Chiloé Archipelago where it was cultivated by the indigenous people.[4] The potato was introduced to Europe in 1536,[5] and subsequently by European mariners to territories and ports throughout the world.[6] Thousands of varieties persist in the Andes, where over 100 varieties might be found in a single valley, and a dozen or more might be maintained by a single agricultural household.[7] Once established in Europe, the potato soon became an important food staple and field crop. But lack of genetic diversity, due to the fact that very few varieties were initially introduced, left the crop vulnerable to disease. In 1845, a plant disease known as late blight, caused by the fungus-like oocmycete Phytophthora infestans, spread rapidly through the poorer communities of western Ireland, resulting in the crop failures that led to the Great Irish Famine.[5] The annual diet of an average global citizen in the first decade of the twenty-first century would include about 33 kilograms (or 73 lbs.) of potato. However, the local importance of potato is extremely variable and rapidly changing. The potato remains an essential crop in Europe (especially eastern and central Europe), where per capita production is still the highest in the world, but the most rapid expansion of potato over the past few decades has occurred in southern and eastern Asia. China is now th