1
00:00:06,574 --> 00:00:12,366
Corn currently accounts for more than 
one tenth of our global crop production.

2
00:00:12,366 --> 00:00:17,330
The United States alone has enough 
cornfields to cover Germany.

3
00:00:17,330 --> 00:00:20,760
But while other crops we grow 
come in a range of varieties,

4
00:00:20,760 --> 00:00:28,587
over 99% of cultivated corn is the 
exact same type: Yellow Dent #2.

5
00:00:28,587 --> 00:00:32,317
This means that humans grow 
more Yellow Dent #2

6
00:00:32,317 --> 00:00:35,112
than any other plant on the planet.

7
00:00:35,112 --> 00:00:38,556
So how did this single variety 
of this single plant

8
00:00:38,556 --> 00:00:43,521
become the biggest success story 
in agricultural history?

9
00:00:43,521 --> 00:00:47,611
Nearly 9,000 years ago, corn, 
also called maize,

10
00:00:47,611 --> 00:00:52,965
was first domesticated from teosinte, 
a grass native to Mesoamerica.

11
00:00:52,965 --> 00:00:56,785
Teosinte’s rock-hard seeds 
were barely edible,

12
00:00:56,785 --> 00:01:01,309
but its fibrous husk could be turned 
into a versatile material.

13
00:01:01,309 --> 00:01:07,252
Over the next 4,700 years, farmers bred 
the plant into a staple crop,

14
00:01:07,252 --> 00:01:10,392
with larger cobs and edible kernels.

15
00:01:10,392 --> 00:01:14,711
As maize spread throughout the Americas, 
it took on an important role,

16
00:01:14,711 --> 00:01:18,693
with multiple indigenous societies 
revering a “Corn Mother”

17
00:01:18,693 --> 00:01:21,997
as the goddess who created agriculture.

18
00:01:21,997 --> 00:01:26,529
When Europeans first arrived in America, 
they shunned the strange plant.

19
00:01:26,529 --> 00:01:30,743
Many even believed it was the source of 
physical and cultural differences

20
00:01:30,743 --> 00:01:32,903
between them and the Mesoamericans.

21
00:01:32,903 --> 00:01:33,667
However,

22
00:01:33,667 --> 00:01:38,676
their attempts to cultivate European crops
in American soil quickly failed,

23
00:01:38,676 --> 00:01:41,966
and the settlers were forced 
to expand their diet.

24
00:01:41,966 --> 00:01:45,983
Finding the crop to their taste, 
maize soon crossed the Atlantic,

25
00:01:45,983 --> 00:01:50,331
where its ability to grow in diverse 
climates made it a popular grain

26
00:01:50,331 --> 00:01:52,784
in many European countries.

27
00:01:52,784 --> 00:01:58,099
But the newly established United States 
was still the corn capital of the world.

28
00:01:58,099 --> 00:02:01,979
In the early 1800’s, different regions 
across the country

29
00:02:01,979 --> 00:02:05,502
produced strains of varying 
size and taste.

30
00:02:05,502 --> 00:02:07,397
In the 1850’s, however,

31
00:02:07,397 --> 00:02:12,176
these unique varieties proved difficult 
for train operators to package,

32
00:02:12,176 --> 00:02:14,296
and for traders to sell.

33
00:02:14,296 --> 00:02:18,655
Trade boards in rail hubs like Chicago 
encouraged corn farmers

34
00:02:18,655 --> 00:02:20,980
to breed one standardized crop.

35
00:02:20,980 --> 00:02:26,309
This dream would finally be 
realized at 1893’s World’s Fair,

36
00:02:26,309 --> 00:02:31,092
where James Reid’s yellow dent corn 
won the Blue Ribbon.

37
00:02:31,092 --> 00:02:35,222
Over the next 50 years, yellow dent 
corn swept the nation.

38
00:02:35,222 --> 00:02:38,315
Following the technological 
developments of World War II,

39
00:02:38,315 --> 00:02:41,382
mechanized harvesters became 
widely available.

40
00:02:41,382 --> 00:02:46,403
This meant a batch of corn that previously
took a full day to harvest by hand

41
00:02:46,403 --> 00:02:49,583
could now be collected in just 5 minutes.

42
00:02:49,583 --> 00:02:54,345
Another wartime technology, the chemical 
explosive ammonium nitrate,

43
00:02:54,345 --> 00:02:57,295
also found new life on the farm.

44
00:02:57,295 --> 00:02:59,432
With this new synthetic fertilizer,

45
00:02:59,432 --> 00:03:03,442
farmers could plant dense fields 
of corn year after year,

46
00:03:03,442 --> 00:03:07,955
without the need to rotate their crops 
and restore nitrogen to the soil.

47
00:03:07,955 --> 00:03:12,170
While these advances made corn an 
attractive crop to American farmers,

48
00:03:12,170 --> 00:03:16,194
US agricultural policy limited the 
amount farmers could grow

49
00:03:16,194 --> 00:03:18,419
to ensure high sale prices.

50
00:03:18,419 --> 00:03:23,325
But in 1972, President Richard Nixon 
removed these limitations

51
00:03:23,325 --> 00:03:27,285
while negotiating massive grain 
sales to the Soviet Union.

52
00:03:27,285 --> 00:03:30,913
With this new trade deal 
and WWII technology,

53
00:03:30,913 --> 00:03:35,401
corn production exploded into 
a global phenomenon.

54
00:03:35,401 --> 00:03:39,651
These mountains of maize inspired 
numerous corn concoctions.

55
00:03:39,651 --> 00:03:44,761
Cornstarch could be used as a thickening 
agent for everything from gasoline to glue

56
00:03:44,761 --> 00:03:50,727
or processed into a low-cost sweetener 
known as High-Fructose Corn Syrup.

57
00:03:50,727 --> 00:03:55,147
Maize quickly became one of the 
cheapest animal feeds worldwide.

58
00:03:55,147 --> 00:03:57,677
This allowed for inexpensive 
meat production,

59
00:03:57,677 --> 00:04:01,950
which in turn increased the demand 
for meat and corn feed.

60
00:04:01,950 --> 00:04:06,656
Today, humans eat only 40% of 
all cultivated corn,

61
00:04:06,656 --> 00:04:12,466
while the remaining 60% supports consumer 
good industries worldwide.

62
00:04:12,466 --> 00:04:16,096
Yet the spread of this wonder-crop 
has come at a price.

63
00:04:16,096 --> 00:04:21,217
Global water sources are polluted by 
excess ammonium nitrate from cornfields.

64
00:04:21,217 --> 00:04:26,345
Corn accounts for a large portion of 
agriculture-related carbon emissions,

65
00:04:26,345 --> 00:04:29,725
partly due to the increased meat 
production it enables.

66
00:04:29,725 --> 00:04:35,163
The use of high fructose corn syrup may 
be a contributor to diabetes and obesity.

67
00:04:35,163 --> 00:04:37,883
And the rise of monoculture farming

68
00:04:37,883 --> 00:04:42,972
has left our food supply dangerously 
vulnerable to pests and pathogens—

69
00:04:42,972 --> 00:04:48,336
a single virus could infect the world’s 
supply of this ubiquitous crop.

70
00:04:48,336 --> 00:04:51,246
Corn has gone from a bushy grass

71
00:04:51,246 --> 00:04:54,492
to an essential element of the 
world’s industries.

72
00:04:54,492 --> 00:04:59,830
But only time will tell if it has led us 
into a maze of unsustainability.