Evilprodigy
Donor
You have to keep in mind that the fact they make potatoes doesn't really matter. What does matter is how much the potato impacted their agriculture by increasing the total amount of calories produced in the country.Interestingly enough, today Egypt is the leading potato-cultivalting country in Africa and one of the top potato exporters globally. In OTL, potato was introduced in Egypt in the 1800's . Maybe it can be introduced earlier in TTL?
Information on the potato industry in ANY region
The potato was introduced to Egypt during the 1800s, and large scale cultivation began during the First World War when British colonial officials encouraged its production to feed their troops. After the war, however, expansion of potato growing was hampered by the poor quality of imported seed...www.potatopro.com
The potato is a superfood, so its introduction is always somewhat impactful on existing farmland. But where it really shines is in its ability to be grown in areas outside of the cultivation of traditional old world crops. Acidic soils, thin soils, all places where wheat could normally not grow potato can thrive. One of the main limiting factors in agricultural production is that the amount of land you can farm his limited. Humans have attempted to overcome that limitation for millennia. Irrigation of dry farmland, the clearing of forest, the draining of swamp, the introduction of new crops, and the utilisation of fertilizer all are designed to increase arable acreage. The potato was one of the biggest single events that increased potential acreage of human agriculture. Egypt however did not have peripheral soil in large quantities which benefited from the introduction of the potato. instead of turning empty land into productive farmland, they instead turn already productive farmland into marginally more productive farmland. The total caloric production of Egyptian farms has thus not increased as significantly as a country whose acreage could double if they started growing the potato. Even if the land is less productive it's still a greater impact. The difference between land producing 0 calories and producing 100 calories, is still greater than it being 80 calories and increasing that to 120.