The History of Corn — The Crop a Trade Deal Used to Wreck Millions of Mexican Farmers

Corn was domesticated by indigenous farmers in Mexico roughly nine thousand years ago through one of the most remarkable feats of selective breeding in human history, transforming a small, barely edible wild grass into the crop that would eventually feed more of the planet than almost any other. In one of history's stranger ironies, the exact country that first created corn was later flooded with cheap, heavily subsidized American corn following the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement, a policy shift that agricultural economists have directly linked to the displacement of an estimated two million Mexican farmers, unable to compete with corn imports sold below the actual cost of production thanks to massive United States government subsidies. In this episode, we trace corn from an ancient Mexican grass called teosinte, through the specific American subsidy system that makes corn one of the most heavily supported crops in the entire federal budget, into NAFTA's documented impact on Mexican rural communities, and into high fructose corn syrup's rise as the specific product of that subsidy system that quietly took over the American food supply. This is the real story hiding inside almost everything in your pantry. 🔔 Subscribe for weekly deep dives into the hidden, uncomfortable history behind the foods we eat every single day. #FoodHistory #HiddenHistory #Corn