Corn currently accounts for more than 
one tenth of our global crop production.

The United States alone has enough 
cornfields to cover Germany.

But while other crops we grow 
come in a range of varieties,

over 99% of cultivated corn is the 
exact same type: Yellow Dent #2.

This means that humans grow 
more Yellow Dent #2

than any other plant on the planet.

So how did this single variety 
of this single plant

become the biggest success story 
in agricultural history?

Nearly 9,000 years ago, corn, 
also called maize,

was first domesticated from teosinte, 
a grass native to Mesoamerica.

Teosinte’s rock-hard seeds 
were barely edible,

but its fibrous husk could be turned 
into a versatile material.

Over the next 4,700 years, farmers bred 
the plant into a staple crop,

with larger cobs and edible kernels.

As maize spread throughout the Americas, 
it took on an important role,

with multiple indigenous societies 
revering a “Corn Mother”

as the goddess who created agriculture.

When Europeans first arrived in America, 
they shunned the strange plant.

Many even believed it was the source of 
physical and cultural differences

between them and the Mesoamericans.

However,

their attempts to cultivate European crops
in American soil quickly failed,

and the settlers were forced 
to expand their diet.

Finding the crop to their taste, 
maize soon crossed the Atlantic,

where its ability to grow in diverse 
climates made it a popular grain

in many European countries.

But the newly established United States 
was still the corn capital of the world.

In the early 1800’s, different regions 
across the country

produced strains of varying 
size and taste.

In the 1850’s, however,

these unique varieties proved difficult 
for train operators to package,

and for traders to sell.

Trade boards in rail hubs like Chicago 
encouraged corn farmers

to breed one standardized crop.

This dream would finally be 
realized at 1893’s World’s Fair,

where James Reid’s yellow dent corn 
won the Blue Ribbon.

Over the next 50 years, yellow dent 
corn swept the nation.

Following the technological 
developments of World War II,

mechanized harvesters became 
widely available.

This meant a batch of corn that previously
took a full day to harvest by hand

could now be collected in just 5 minutes.

Another wartime technology, the chemical 
explosive ammonium nitrate,

also found new life on the farm.

With this new synthetic fertilizer,

farmers could plant dense fields 
of corn year after year,

without the need to rotate their crops 
and restore nitrogen to the soil.

While these advances made corn an 
attractive crop to American farmers,

US agricultural policy limited the 
amount farmers could grow

to ensure high sale prices.

But in 1972, President Richard Nixon 
removed these limitations

while negotiating massive grain 
sales to the Soviet Union.

With this new trade deal 
and WWII technology,

corn production exploded into 
a global phenomenon.

These mountains of maize inspired 
numerous corn concoctions.

Cornstarch could be used as a thickening 
agent for everything from gasoline to glue

or processed into a low-cost sweetener 
known as High-Fructose Corn Syrup.

Maize quickly became one of the 
cheapest animal feeds worldwide.

This allowed for inexpensive 
meat production,

which in turn increased the demand 
for meat and corn feed.

Today, humans eat only 40% of 
all cultivated corn,

while the remaining 60% supports consumer 
good industries worldwide.

Yet the spread of this wonder-crop 
has come at a price.

Global water sources are polluted by 
excess ammonium nitrate from cornfields.

Corn accounts for a large portion of 
agriculture-related carbon emissions,

partly due to the increased meat 
production it enables.

The use of high fructose corn syrup may 
be a contributor to diabetes and obesity.

And the rise of monoculture farming

has left our food supply dangerously 
vulnerable to pests and pathogens—

a single virus could infect the world’s 
supply of this ubiquitous crop.

Corn has gone from a bushy grass

to an essential element of the 
world’s industries.

But only time will tell if it has led us 
into a maze of unsustainability.