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It seems that the origin of sweet potato predates 8.000 BC as their presence has been found in Central & South America and Polynesia, implying that it did not need the human hand to get from Americas to Polynesian Islands
Sweet Potatoes may be the first ever examplof of genetic modification as we know it today. At some point in their evolutionary history Agrobacterium dna became incorporated into their genome. Agrobacterium is a common soil bacterium, gram negative and rod shaped, and a member of the Rhizobiaceae.
It causes crown gall disease in plants, but has also the unique ability to interact with plant cells and transfer part of its own deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) to the host cell.
More "The extra DNA helped with the domestication of the sugary vegetable in Central or South America. Sweet potatoes aren't tubers, like potatoes. They're roots — swollen, puffed-up parts of the root. "We think the bacteria genes help the plant produce two hormones that change the root and make it something edible."
The genes stuck around as the sweet potato spread across the globe — first to Polynesia and Southeast Asia, then to Europe and Africa.
Today, the sweet potato is the world's seventh most important crop, in terms of pounds of food produced, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations says
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