I've mentioned before that, unless you have a working farm, growing potatoes is going to be necessary for self-sufficiency for most preppers. A couple sources that reinforce that point:
First, from an article at the Guardian entitled "A century in the Siberian wilderness: the Old Believers who time forgot," is this bit:
By 1995, the Russian government was out of money and Yeltsin needed funds for his re-election campaign. Through the “loans-for-shares” scheme, he essentially sold off Russia’s largest enterprises, including its oil and gas concerns. This cemented the position of the oligarchs, whose payments to Yeltsin bought them both Russia’s greatest economic assets and the support of its president. Russia was being sold for parts, the needs of ordinary people forgotten. After the 1998 economic crisis, life expectancy fell to just 58.9 years for men, an unprecedented decline for a country that was not at war. The change was due to a large increase in deaths attributable to social stress: heart attacks, strokes, suicides, homicides, overdoses, car crashes.
When asked how they survived during this period, people often answered with one word: potatoes. Bags of potatoes were passed between relatives, friends and neighbours. Not even the skins were wasted. People slept at their fields near harvest time, guarding against potato thieves. In 2004, an elderly man in Novgorod oblast expressed Russia’s collective affection when he erected a monument to the potato. The inscription thanked Christopher Columbus and Peter the Great for bringing it to Russia. The world of the Lykovs, who thanked God for potatoes every day, felt surprisingly contemporary.
And the second is the video below from Townsends on how the potato became such an important staple in Europe.
When I was young, growing your own potatoes was simple because you could buy most any potato at the store, wait until it started growing eyes, and cut it up to act as seed potatoes. It's more complicated today. Store-bought potatoes are generally treated with sprout inhibitors (like Chlorproham) to prevent them from growing eyes and often carry diseases. The best option is to get certified "seed" potatoes and, secondarily, to use tubers you grew yourself because you can avoid some of the issues with store-bought potatoes (although disease will still be an issue). If you are adamant about using a store-bought potato for some reason, here is an article that discusses using them as seed potatoes.
VIDEO: "How Potatoes Saved The Poor"
Townsends (14 min.)
