Highland Potato Famine

The Highland Potato Famine, a food crisis caused by potato blight that strikes the Scottish Highlands, causes over 1.7 million people to leave Scotland during the period 1846—52.

Although more of a major agrarian crisis than a true famine, the Highland Potato Famine is now in widespread use as a name for a period of 19th century Highland and Scottish history.

True famine is a real prospect throughout the period, and certainly it is one of severe malnutrition, serious disease, crippling financial hardship and traumatic disruption to essentially agrarian communities.

The causes of the crisis are in many respects similar to those of the very real Great Irish Famine of about the same time, and both famines are part of the wider food crisis facing Northern Europe caused by potato blight during the mid-1840s.

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