Maize

"The biological origin, diversification, and domestication of maize occurred in Mesoamerica, located in the center of Mexico. This grass of the Poaceae family had a seminal role in the origin, extension of agriculture, and culture of pre-Hispanic civilizations (Smith et al., 1981). One of the species of actual s, Zea mays subsp. parviglumis, is the progenitor of all derivative Zea mays subsp. mays modern races. The human-driven domestication that started around 9,000 years ago is one of the most critical events in the history of agriculture (Doebley, 2004; Piperno et al., 2009; Sahoo et al., 2021)."

"... From the more than 200 million metric tons of corn that the United States produces each year, 85 percent is converted into cows, hogs and chickens in the proportion of 60 millions cows, 100 million hogs and 4 billion chickens. As an index of corn's super conversion powers (double those of wheat), one bushel of corn in a mixed feed bag translated into 15 pounds of retail beef, 26 pounds of pork and 37 pounds of poultry. And this is still corn in a form we can recognize: fodder, silage, shelled grains or fibrous by-products."

"... The great edifice of variety and choice that is an American turns out to rest on a remarkably narrow biological foundation comprised of a tiny group of plants that is dominated by a single species: Zea mays, the giant tropical grass most Americans know as corn. Corn is what feeds the steer that becomes the steak. Corn feeds the chicken and the pig, the and the , the and the and, increasingly, even the salmon, a carnivore by nature that the fish farmers are reengineering to tolerate corn. The eggs are made of corn. The milk and cheese and yogurt, which once came from dairy cows that grazed on grass, now typically come from Holsteins that spend their working lives indoors tethered to machines, eating corn. ... ... Read the ingredients on the label of any processed food and, provided you know the chemical names it travels under, corn is what you will find."

"... corn is the plant of the Americas; it is native to the New World, and corn, more than any other plant, feeds the Americas. At the time of Columbus, corn was cultivated from in Canada to Chile in South America, mostly on forested land that could be cleared by slash-and-burn agriculture followed by several years of fallow. The that replaced the tall grassland of the midcentral United States is a recently developed (ca. 150 years) corn-producing region with its own landrace, . The United States produces 40% of the world's corn harvest, and it takes 25 corn plants per person per day to support the American way of life. This plant is found in more than the on the breakfast table. is in the margarine, corn syrup sweeteners in the marmalade, corn syrup solids in the instant nondairy coffee creamer, and corn was fed to the cows that made the milk, the chickens that laid the eggs, and the pigs that produced the bacon."

"Garrison Wilkes, (quote from p. 4; edited by C. Wayne Smith, Javier Betrán, and Edward C. A. Runge)"