What Caused The Highland Potato Famine?

The Highland potato famine lasted eleven years from 1846 to 1857. It is called a famine but is often described as being more of a failure of agriculture rather than a true famine. Just as in Ireland the potato crop was seriously damaged by the infection known as potato blight. However, the causes of the Highland people's dependence on the potato as its main food crop was even more obviously the result of politics than it was in Ireland. Patterns of land ownership and access were dramatically altered as a result of the Highland Clearances which started in the mid 18th century. Poor tenant farmers were pushed onto increasingly marginal land allowing wealthy landowners, often English in origin, to accumulate land for the then highly profitable sheep farming. This practice combined with the devastating blow of the potato blight triggered widespread malnutrition and eventually migration to the fats growing cities or further afield.