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 This means that humans grow more Yellow Dent
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.
