well... it would seem that changing the thread name from famine to blight did little if anything to change the need to battle over past events....

How about we instead look to lessons that could and should be learned from past mistakes/events....

Lesson number one... beware vulnerabilities in your food supply. Reliance on a limited number of food plants or animals - not just kind but also the genetic strains of each- increases vulnerability to disease and reduced production. Translation... don't put all your eggs in one basket if you want to protect your food supply from getting smashed.

Lesson number two... there are always those who seek to take advantage or profit from another's misfortune... politics and profiteering are two of the most exploitive human activities I can think of.

Lesson number three... good intentions need to be coupled with knowledge & understanding to affect a positive result.

It is most likely that the maize imported was actually flint corn... which needs to be made into hominey to be edible... which is why grits (ground from hominey) is a mainstay food down south. Cornmeal is ground from dent corn and usually mixed with wheat flour for baking, or cooked into a mush or fritter. And you still need to add beans to provide a complete mix of amino acids necessary for a healthy diet. Introducing rutabagas would have worked better in the early years of the blight... imho.