Standing near the historic castle overlooking Vaduz, Lichtenstein, it is clear that one aspect of globalization that began five centuries ago continues. From the valley below comes the unmistakable (to a farm boy, at least) whine of a silage chopper cutting corn. ‘The Columbian exchange’ has brought that quintessential Western Hemisphere crop to Alpine valleys.
That phrase titled Alfred Crosby’s 1973 book about “the biological and cultural consequences of 1492,” and refers to the transfers of various species from one hemisphere to another. Cows, horses, hogs, wheat, smallpox and measles crossed the Atlantic to the west. Tomatoes, potatoes, corn and (probably) syphilis went east.
The consequences were nearly immediate and enormous. Imagine the American west without the horse, Ireland without the potato and Italy without tomatoes.
Other such transfers took place later. Imagine Minnesota or South Dakota without the pheasant or soybeans, both Chinese.
Landing at Milan, Italy, is like landing at Des Moines. Fields of corn and soybeans stretch for miles beneath the plane. The only difference is that the fields are not square.
Later, as the famous “Glacier Express” train drops from near the Gotthard Pass into the upper Rhine Valley, Alpine meadows give way to fields of corn.
It took much longer for corn to catch on in Europe than tomatoes and potatoes. But, over time, with mechanization and with plant breeding to meet local growing conditions, the superiority of corn silage in producing nutritious dairy feed per acre became apparent even in Alpine valleys.
The rich wheat fields of the Po Valley from west of Milan to Venice were a bread basket for the Roman empire. Wheat was turned into the pasta that distinguishes Italian cuisine to this day. But in a rich-soil, high-rainfall area like northern Italy, you can now earn more per acre with corn or soybeans than with wheat.
Ironically, mega-dairies in irrigated areas of the western United States, from Twin Falls, Idaho, down to Tulare, Calif., all depend on irrigated alfalfa. With irrigation, alfalfa produces more cow-digestible protein per acre than alternative crops. Corn always can be shipped in.
But alfalfa, still called “Lucerne” in many other countries, originated near the city of that name in Switzerland and in the Low Countries. U.S. seed companies still offer “Flemish type” alfalfa varieties.
And while most U.S. dairy cows are still “Holsteins” from their origin in that Danish-German region, their increasingly narrow genetic base has driven progressive dairymen to seek fresh genes from French breeds.
Transferring species can cause great harm. European diseases killed tens of millions among the native populations of the Americas. European rabbits devastated plant and animal ecosystems in Australia. Lampreys brought in ship’s ballast water wiped out Great Lakes commercial fishing. Kudzu plagues the South. Russian Olive trees touted by the U.S. Soil Conservation Service for Great Plains windbreaks have become a weed. Zebra mussels wreak havoc today.
But the overall balance of the spreading of beneficial plant and animal species around the world has been positive and has been a source of more efficient resource use and better living conditions for centuries.
© 2008 Edward Lotterman
Chanarambie Consulting, Inc.