AMERICA’S LOST CROPS REWRITE THE HISTORY OF FARMING
Our food system could have been so different.

By Sarah Laskow

OCTOBER 1, 2022.

That story went something like this. On this continent, agriculture—and therefore civilization—was born in Mesoamerica, where corn happened to be abundant. The more advanced people there began cultivating this knobbly little plant and passed their knowledge north, to people in more temperate climes. When Europeans arrived, corn ruled the fields, a staple crop, just like wheat across the ocean. If the Middle East’s Fertile Crescent was agriculture’s origin point for Europe, Mexico was agriculture’s origin point here. This very human innovation had unspooled in the same rare way in these two places. Superior men tamed nature and taught other superior men to follow

The old, epic story of agriculture in North America had two heroes, long sung and much venerated. One was human ingenuity. The other was corn.

That story went something like this. On this continent, agriculture—and therefore civilization—was born in Mesoamerica, where corn happened to be abundant. The more advanced people there began cultivating this knobbly little plant and passed their knowledge north, to people in more temperate climes. When Europeans arrived, corn ruled the fields, a staple crop, just like wheat across the ocean. If the Middle East’s Fertile Crescent was agriculture’s origin point for Europe, Mexico was agriculture’s origin point here. This very human innovation had unspooled in the same rare way in these two places. Superior men tamed nature and taught other superior men to follow.

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2022/10/agricultural-revolution-is-wrong-corn-cultivation-lost-crops/671587/