corn

Cultivated New World plant Zea mays of the grass family, with the grain borne on cobs enclosed in husks. It was domesticated by 6,500 BC in Mesoamerica, where it grew wild. It became the staple crop for the Neolithic farming villages and civilizations of Mexico and Peru. Today it is grown extensively in all subtropical and warm temperate regions, and its range has been extended to colder zones by hardy varieties developed in the 1960s.

Corn was cultivated throughout most of the New World by the time of European contact. It was brought to Europe, Asia, and Africa by the colonizing powers, but its use in those regions is mainly for animal feed. In the USA, a corn monoculture dominates the Midwest, where many hybrids have been developed for both human food and animal feed. Corn is eaten fresh (on the cob or creamed), canned (niblets), frozen, and in dried forms (cornmeal, popcorn), and is made into hominy, polenta, cornflour, and corn bread. It is pressed for corn oil and fermented into a mash, which, distilled, is corn liquor (whiskey). Most of the methods of storing, processing, and cooking corn can be traced to American Indian recipes. Popcorn has been found in archeological sites in the southwest dating from 4000 BC. Corn stalks are made into paper and hardboard.

In August 1995, the US Environmental Protection Agency approved the sale of corn genetically modified to resist the European corn borer - a pest that causes annual damage of approximately US$1 billion. The corn contains a gene from a soil bacterium that produces a toxin fatal to the borer. However, in May 1996, Europe blocked the approval for the genetically engineered corn; Britain objected on the grounds that it contains a gene that gives resistance to the widely used antibiotic ampicillin.