Florida's Air Potato Mystery: Why This "Food" Plant Has the State Spending Millions to Kill It | African Food Recipes Florida's Air Potato Mystery: Why This "Food" Plant Has the State Spending Millions to Kill It In West Africa, it's a reliable food source. In Florida, it's an ecological monster that's swallowing forests whole. Meet the air potato—a plant that exposes one of nature's most fascinating paradoxes: how something that feeds people in one continent becomes a biological weapon in another. The air potato's distinctive bulbils—what looks like food in Africa has become Florida's ecological nightmare. The Great Paradox: Food vs. Foe In Ghana and Nigeria: Farmers cultivate specific varieties of Dioscorea bulbifera . They know which types are edible, how to process them (often involving extended boi...