Why didn't the Roman soldiers have tomato sauce with their pasta?
No, this isn't a riddle - it's about agricultural history. I'm reminded of this from my recent trip across Kansas, famous for its wheat. When the Spanish conquistadors ventured into the Great Plains searching for gold in the 16th century, they found no gold - and no wheat. They found Native Americans growing corn, beans, and squash.
The conquistadors had never seen corn, beans, or squash in their native Spain. These three crops are native to the western hemisphere, known as "the three sisters" of Native American agriculture.
During the evolutionary process, the separation of continents by large bodies of water augured for different plant and animal species to evolve. Only when there was transportation between the hemispheres did plant and animal species get spread across continents.
So, that's why the Roman soldiers didn't have tomato sauce with their pasta - tomatoes are native to the western hemisphere, Mexico. And that's why the Spanish invaders didn't find wheat in Kansas - the small grains are native to the Old World. And if the Spanish committed some serious mayhem to the Native Americans, they brought horses, which were native to the old world.
During the generations between the Spanish expeditions of the 16th century and the westward migration of pioneers across the North American continent in the 18th and 19th centuries, Native Americans effectively used that time to adapt horses to their battle tactics, making them even more effective warriors.
We get most of our bananas from Central America. It's easy to forget that bananas are native to Southeast Asia. They were also cultivated in Africa. But it wasn't until Europeans came to the western hemisphere that bananas were introduced here.
The same story holds for coffee, having originated in the highlands of Ethiopia. Coffee needs specific climatic conditions, and does well in the highlands of East Africa, Kenya and Tanzania in particular, the Kona Coast of Hawaii, and especially in the high altitudes of Colombia in South America.
Potatoes are another crop native to the western hemisphere, the Altiplano of South America. Potatoes do well in cool climates and yield a large amount of energy per acre, making it a desirable, economical crop. This efficiency in energy yield made it an ideal crop to grow in the cool climates of Ireland. A single acre of potatoes and a cow was enough to feed a family a nutritionally adequate, though monotonous, diet.
However, there was a catch - there usually is. It was perhaps inevitable that the most efficient, high yielding variety of potatoes would be planted. But once a particular disease or fungus catches hold, it is likely to wipe out the entire crop. And if a society is largely dependent on one crop, the conditions are ripe for disaster. And that's what happened during the Irish potato famine of the 1840s.
Why didn't this happen in Peru where people were also dependent on potatoes? It's because there are some 3,800 varieties of potatoes in Peru, providing tremendous genetic diversity. With sufficient genetic diversity not all varieties are susceptible to the same disease-causing organisms.
This phenomenon illustrates the logic behind seed banks for which the objective is to preserve supplies of a wide variety of species, and varieties within those species, lest they be lost forever.
Plant breeders are adept at selecting plant varieties with desirable genetic traits to formulate high yielding, disease resistant crops. But through natural biological processes such as genetic self-selection, invasive organisms can circumvent the best efforts of plant breeders.
Those organisms that are most resilient against disease-resistant chemicals, or are able to infect a crop variety bred for disease resistance, pass on that ability to the next generation of organisms. Eventually, the disease-causing organisms dominate, and plant breeders must come up with new varieties. For this they need a range of seed stocks with varied characteristics.
This is the same logic that has medical scientists advising against overuse of antibiotics. Those bacteria that are able to resist effects of the antibiotic reproduce and flourish, eventually resulting in diseases and infections that the antibiotic can no longer counteract. The more an antibiotic is used, the greater the opportunity for organisms to become resistant to it.
There currently are some 1,400 seed banks around the world, the importance of which cannot be over-emphasized. The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research sponsors 15 independent, non-profit research centers with the objective of research on major agricultural crops. Centers take the lead in regions where they have a comparative advantage. For example, the International Rice Research Institute is located in the Philippines and the International Potato Center in Peru.
There is a distinction between conventional plant breeding and genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Conventional plant breeding selects varieties of a crop for desirable traits, crossing them in various ways to produce new varieties with selected characteristics.
In contrast, the production of GMOs is a recent development that, through advanced "genetic engineering," actually changes the genetic makeup of a species. It is this process that is controversial for various ecological and scientific reasons. Its adherents assert that there are no proven detrimental effects of GMOs, and that such advances are necessary to feed a growing world population. Its critics are skeptical and assert that there are unknown and unforeseen results.
There are real economic implications of this controversy. For example, some foreign markets do not accept American products such as genetically modified grains. We can expect this controversy to get more intense in the future.
It's hard to imagine Italian food without tomatoes and an America without wheat, coffee, and horses. But before commerce between the western and eastern hemispheres, that's the way it was.
One result of the Columbus voyage to the western hemisphere was that profound historic exchange of species - something that we have long taken as the natural order of things.
- John Waelti's column appears every Friday in the Times. He can be reached at jjwaelti1@tds.net.
No, this isn't a riddle - it's about agricultural history. I'm reminded of this from my recent trip across Kansas, famous for its wheat. When the Spanish conquistadors ventured into the Great Plains searching for gold in the 16th century, they found no gold - and no wheat. They found Native Americans growing corn, beans, and squash.
The conquistadors had never seen corn, beans, or squash in their native Spain. These three crops are native to the western hemisphere, known as "the three sisters" of Native American agriculture.
During the evolutionary process, the separation of continents by large bodies of water augured for different plant and animal species to evolve. Only when there was transportation between the hemispheres did plant and animal species get spread across continents.
So, that's why the Roman soldiers didn't have tomato sauce with their pasta - tomatoes are native to the western hemisphere, Mexico. And that's why the Spanish invaders didn't find wheat in Kansas - the small grains are native to the Old World. And if the Spanish committed some serious mayhem to the Native Americans, they brought horses, which were native to the old world.
During the generations between the Spanish expeditions of the 16th century and the westward migration of pioneers across the North American continent in the 18th and 19th centuries, Native Americans effectively used that time to adapt horses to their battle tactics, making them even more effective warriors.
We get most of our bananas from Central America. It's easy to forget that bananas are native to Southeast Asia. They were also cultivated in Africa. But it wasn't until Europeans came to the western hemisphere that bananas were introduced here.
The same story holds for coffee, having originated in the highlands of Ethiopia. Coffee needs specific climatic conditions, and does well in the highlands of East Africa, Kenya and Tanzania in particular, the Kona Coast of Hawaii, and especially in the high altitudes of Colombia in South America.
Potatoes are another crop native to the western hemisphere, the Altiplano of South America. Potatoes do well in cool climates and yield a large amount of energy per acre, making it a desirable, economical crop. This efficiency in energy yield made it an ideal crop to grow in the cool climates of Ireland. A single acre of potatoes and a cow was enough to feed a family a nutritionally adequate, though monotonous, diet.
However, there was a catch - there usually is. It was perhaps inevitable that the most efficient, high yielding variety of potatoes would be planted. But once a particular disease or fungus catches hold, it is likely to wipe out the entire crop. And if a society is largely dependent on one crop, the conditions are ripe for disaster. And that's what happened during the Irish potato famine of the 1840s.
Why didn't this happen in Peru where people were also dependent on potatoes? It's because there are some 3,800 varieties of potatoes in Peru, providing tremendous genetic diversity. With sufficient genetic diversity not all varieties are susceptible to the same disease-causing organisms.
This phenomenon illustrates the logic behind seed banks for which the objective is to preserve supplies of a wide variety of species, and varieties within those species, lest they be lost forever.
Plant breeders are adept at selecting plant varieties with desirable genetic traits to formulate high yielding, disease resistant crops. But through natural biological processes such as genetic self-selection, invasive organisms can circumvent the best efforts of plant breeders.
Those organisms that are most resilient against disease-resistant chemicals, or are able to infect a crop variety bred for disease resistance, pass on that ability to the next generation of organisms. Eventually, the disease-causing organisms dominate, and plant breeders must come up with new varieties. For this they need a range of seed stocks with varied characteristics.
This is the same logic that has medical scientists advising against overuse of antibiotics. Those bacteria that are able to resist effects of the antibiotic reproduce and flourish, eventually resulting in diseases and infections that the antibiotic can no longer counteract. The more an antibiotic is used, the greater the opportunity for organisms to become resistant to it.
There currently are some 1,400 seed banks around the world, the importance of which cannot be over-emphasized. The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research sponsors 15 independent, non-profit research centers with the objective of research on major agricultural crops. Centers take the lead in regions where they have a comparative advantage. For example, the International Rice Research Institute is located in the Philippines and the International Potato Center in Peru.
There is a distinction between conventional plant breeding and genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Conventional plant breeding selects varieties of a crop for desirable traits, crossing them in various ways to produce new varieties with selected characteristics.
In contrast, the production of GMOs is a recent development that, through advanced "genetic engineering," actually changes the genetic makeup of a species. It is this process that is controversial for various ecological and scientific reasons. Its adherents assert that there are no proven detrimental effects of GMOs, and that such advances are necessary to feed a growing world population. Its critics are skeptical and assert that there are unknown and unforeseen results.
There are real economic implications of this controversy. For example, some foreign markets do not accept American products such as genetically modified grains. We can expect this controversy to get more intense in the future.
It's hard to imagine Italian food without tomatoes and an America without wheat, coffee, and horses. But before commerce between the western and eastern hemispheres, that's the way it was.
One result of the Columbus voyage to the western hemisphere was that profound historic exchange of species - something that we have long taken as the natural order of things.
- John Waelti's column appears every Friday in the Times. He can be reached at jjwaelti1@tds.net.
