PAUL SMITHS — At Paul Smith's College, James Tucker teaches the only three-credit course in North America devoted to the potato.
"The Humble Spud," a cultural-anthropology class, is his spin on a century-old family tradition on Tucker Farms in Gabriels.
Last February, he received an e-mail from Teach and Tour Sojourners, an agency that provides international educators with teaching opportunities in Ugandan schools, colleges and universities.
Potato climate
From James Lang's book, "Notes of a Potato Watcher," Tucker knew Uganda produced potatoes and that the World International Potato Center had a sub-Saharan office in Kampala.
Recently, Tucker spent 18 days there, along with two Paul Smith's seniors: Rand Snyder, a surveying technology major, and Rosalie Santerre, an industrial operations forestry major.
The trio learned how Uganda produces nuclear-disease-free seed potatoes.
"Potatoes require temperature variations between night and day," explained Tucker, who is the college's recreational and intramural coordinator.
"Up here in the Adirondacks, because of our latitude and our elevation above sea level, we get a broad temperature range between night and day. It's great for potatoes, not corn, tomatoes and sweet potatoes.
"The equator runs right through Uganda. Raising potatoes is difficult. The temperature fluctuates between 72 and 85 degrees. It's ideal for being outdoors but not for growing a potato."
Shelf life
In South America, the Incas of Peru originally cultivated potatoes between 7,000 and 12,000 years ago at elevations between 7,000 and 11,000 feet above seal level. The potato requires between 90 and 110 days to reach maturity.
In Uganda, where snow, ice and frost are not factors, farmers have a potential year-round growing season in the southwestern mountains.
After harvest, potatoes are stored in small barns.
"The temperature is too warm," Tucker said. "A potato grown in the North Country, you can harvest it in September, and it will maintain its integrity as a food product until May or June. In Uganda, it has a shelf life of three or four weeks."
Culture enlightening
In Uganda, growing potatoes is mostly women's work.
"They don't utilize tractors or farm animals," Tucker said. "Everything is done by hand, a hand-held hoe."
Ugandan women hoe around big rocks on terraced mountaintops with steep angles, where a U.S.-donated Massey Ferugson is useless.
"They are very well trained at the farmer level," Tucker said. "I was impressed with that. The researchers are highly educated. They provide information to farmers and co-operative educators to teach proper crop rotation, how to best avoid potato diseases. They don't have the Colorado potato beetle. Fortunately, that's very good for them. But they do have the same soil-borne potato diseases that we have."
Snyder found his Ugandan sojourn enlightening.
"Just exposure to Africa, the cultural and cultural differences — just to see it with my own eyes."
More than 1,500 indigenous potato varieties grow in the Andes. In Uganda, the predominant variety is Victoria, named for Lake Victoria. The primary growing areas are in Kabale and Kisoro.
"Those potatoes are raised at elevations between 6.000 and 8,000 feet, so pretty high up," Tucker said. "The soil where they raise the potatoes is very mountainous and terrace, like the Andes in Peru. The mountains are extinct volcanoes, and extinct volcanoes are very, very fertile. The potato lands in Washington, Idaho and Oregon are volcanic soil also. I see these parallels popping up."
The Ugandan potatoes are grown very green, but transporting the potatoes to the people, who live six and a half hours away, is a challenge. There are no railroads. Even highways threaten the wild things — zebras, crocodiles and giraffes — and children herding cattle and goats in the mountainous terrain.
"Transportation will remain a problem," Tucker said.
Nutrients you need
On the plus side, a hungry population can grow more usable calories from an acre of potatoes than any other vegetable or fruit crop, he said.
"If you just consume potatoes and whole milk, you would be nutriently complete. You may not be happy, but you get all the nutrients you need. The Irish people did it for a century."
In Uganda, farms are small. The soil is not abused.
"Everyone is connected with the earth," Tucker said.
E-mail Robin Caudell at: rcaudell@pressrepublican.com
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