Pomona was a horticulturist, not an agronomist. In Snape's words, she tended gardens, but that did not mean she lacked even the most basic agricultural knowledge.
Continuous cropping, also known as a continuous-cropping obstacle, meant planting the same crop on the same plot of land year after year. Not only did it drain the soil's fertility, it also left behind pests and diseases. Potato late blight was, to a considerable extent, caused by repeatedly planting the same variety of potato.
Yet high-yield potatoes could solve food shortages. Belgium's fertile soil should not have left it worrying about food, but grain exports meant the country had to plant potatoes to keep its people fed. Add laborers arriving from abroad, and the gap would grow even larger, requiring even more potatoes. The late blight Georgiana feared might then break out in Belgium.
She hoped she was overthinking it. When normal people heard "Irish," their first thought was cheap labor. Who would think of such things as she did?
She had originally come to Belgium to promote sugar beet cultivation. Crop rotation could alter the ecological conditions of farmland, increase biodiversity, and improve the soil. Secretions from sugar beet roots could inhibit potato late blight. But persuading a group of starving people to grow that "damned" sugar was no easy task.
She had never dreamed that Ghent would be the first to accept it. That was also thanks to the archbishop's "help." Napoleon had done him a "small favor" as well, restoring his nieces' pensions.
Persuading the Archbishop of Mechelen required certain conditions too. Bonaparte had already relaxed matters, allowing them to establish schools that were not medieval in nature. This might even include allowing the Beguinage of Bruges to continue existing. He supported women entering convents, saying it could cultivate one's character