The staple native grain of Europe is wheat, rice in Asia, and corn in the Americas.

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 if the farmland would just go away, if the subsidies would go away?

> 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.

Maybe Germany had an issue but Wikipedia says:

> 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...

You can grow wheat in Germany, but it's not as good for wheat as Italy.

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.

>>"until recently you couldn't even grow that stuff well in eg most parts of Germany"

He said Europe, not Germany specifically.

https://www.world-foodhistory.com/2018/10/history-of-wheat-i...

Compare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheat#Origin_and_history for going back even further.

> 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.)

Land isn't the only part of the equation.

Yes. But without corn subsidies they would just use the farmland to grow something else.

I'm not too familiar with other places but historically rice wasn't the staple in South Asia. Even in South India, it was something that rich people ate.

As a result of government policies, rice monoculture ended up replacing the the diversity of grains that people actually consumed.

East Asia and Southeast Asia, not South Asia.

It wasn't the only one, but along with wheat and millet, poor Chinese were definitely eating rice.

> poor Chinese were definitely eating rice.

I don't know recent it is but isn't there a rice-wheat divide in China too?

Its been a staple food for thousands of years. At least in Mexico the whole cuisine revolves around it. Same as Asia and rice. All the other uses such as fuel and sweetner is because its subsidized, doubt it would be used so much if it wasn't.

At least in the US this was intentional. 115 B over the last 25 years.

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...

Do you live in the US? I would not say corn is a staple carb (not counting HFCS, but as a direct food replacing bread or rice) for most people. It is consumed directly as a vegetable (sweet corn) and as a staple in the form of cornbread, tortillas, and other cornmeal-based products but I would bet those don’t even form a plurality of starchy carb sources in the American diet, compared to wheat-based carbs like bread or even potatoes. It could be different in Mexico where corn tortillas are more commonly consumed, but in the US I don’t think corn is actually a common staple carb (again, not counting HFCS) at all.

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.

No; I'm from South America. In fact I was mentally comparing MX+USA with the situation here, it depends a lot on the specific region but usually there's a plurality of staple carbs (wheat, rice, potato, corn, yucca...). Cattle food, sugar and renewable fuel are taken up by other crops (soy and sugar cane).

>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.

It does get disproportionate subsidies. But part of it could be simple risk aversion, corn is a very robust crop. Wheat can be destroyed in conditions where corn will prosper and much of the US can get fairly extreme weather.

Same disclaimer applies but my impression is that available corn enabled nations to form, than pre-existed nations developed corn dependency.

Yes