Aren't they putting too many eggs in the same basket?
At least that's the historical context. Today, the reason why America produces so much corn is because of government subsidies, and so she can always feed herself if WWIII ever breaks out and all the borders shut down (unlike many modern first world nations).
As a result of government policies, rice monoculture ended up replacing the the diversity of grains that people actually consumed.
It wasn't the only one, but along with wheat and millet, poor Chinese were definitely eating rice.
I don't know recent it is but isn't there a rice-wheat divide in China too?
> The staple native grain of Europe is wheat, rice in Asia, and corn in the Americas.
Not sure what you mean by native? The predecessor of wheat was native to some parts of the Middle East, but until recently you couldn't even grow that stuff well in eg most parts of Germany. (Hence Germany's enduring love affair with rye bread.)
Rice only grows in some parts of Asia. (Eg Northern China relies on other grains.)
All those crops are human interventions in their wide spread, they aren't native to entire continents.
> In the late Roman Empire in Europe the most important crops were bread wheat in Italy and barley in northern Europe and the Balkans. Near the Mediterranean Sea viticulture and olives were important. Rye and oats were only slowly becoming major crops.[1]
The article does mention Rye was important and the most common crop in the Northernmost regions and in France. Due to its winter tolerance.
See Crops[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_the_Middle_Ag...
So eg you can't really economically grow the durum wheat you need for (non-egg) pasta.
Yes, barley and rye grow just fine. Potatoes, too. But they are a New World import. Germans love potatoes. (Just like Chinese cuisine loves peanuts. Another New World import.)
And, of course, Germany has different regions. Some parts are warm enough for wine, others not so much.
He said Europe, not Germany specifically.
https://www.world-foodhistory.com/2018/10/history-of-wheat-i...
> He said Europe, not Germany specifically.
My point was that continents are not a naturally unit here. (Especially since Europe isn't even a proper continent.)
https://farm.ewg.org/progdetail.php?fips=00000&progcode=corn
biofuel from corn was explicitly subsidized and protected as well:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agricultural_subsidy#United_St...
You may wonder why I don’t count HFCS- that’s because it’s a sweetener composed of simple sugars whereas most staple carb sources are starches. It’s very common in processed foods, which Americans and Mexicans unfortunately consume way too much of, but is not exactly a staple most people have or use in their home cooking.
>I would bet those don’t even form a plurality of starchy carb sources in the American diet
That's good. I was mildly concerned about the situation because others mentioned corn farms subsidised by the government - relying too much on them for food would be risky, in the case of a plague.