Leadership and Digital Change by Iveroth Einar; Hallencreutz Jacob;

Author:Iveroth, Einar; Hallencreutz, Jacob;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group
Published: 2020-07-21T00:00:00+00:00

Prologue

The year is 1752. September is chilly and grey. The lush green of summer is fading away and farmer Jacob Andersson is desperate. Again. The harvest has failed, and his family is facing another winter of hunger. He feels miserable and useless. What to say to his wife and two daughters? He leans on his pitchfork and sighs. Something radical must happen. Some kind of miracle. This simply cannot go on.

The scene is from Småland in Sweden, in an era when farmers were severely undernourished and struggling. Crop failure was very common, there was an almost constant shortage of grain. Every year large amounts had to be imported from abroad. Because of these harsh conditions, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences2 made different attempts (in cooperation with the state authorities in Sweden) to encourage Swedish farmers to change parts of their crop over to production of the more nutritious potato. In a European perspective, Sweden was a late adopter of potato as they started doing attempts in late 18th century, and by then Italy, Spain, France, and the UK had already used the potato in cultivation since the late 16th century, and what is now known as Germany had experience of this crop from the beginning of the 17th century (Hawkes and Francisco-Ortega, 1993). However, the worn out farmer Jacob Andersson knows nothing about all this. He is just desperate and hungry. And he prays for a miracle.

One of the attempts to encourage potato production was made by the scientist Jonas Alströmer, who published writings about this new crop and the cultivating and harvesting technology behind it (Alströmer, 1777, 1992). He was also involved in Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences efforts spreading a leaflet in the form of a “potato manual” to farmers in Sweden (this actually still exists; see: Kungliga Tryckeriet, 1749)—similar attempts were made elsewhere in Europe by, for example, Frederick the Great (Frederick II) in Prussia (Hougas, 1956). However, there was initially strong resistance to the change, since many farmers could not understand how potatoes should be grown, harvested, and eaten. In other words, they misunderstood the technological and organizational changes needed to succeed with potato production. In addition, the potato was connected to strong feelings, fears, and prejudices, as this story soon will unravel.

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