80 THE SCIENTIST | the-scientist.com
READING FRAMESO
ver the past 100 years, an ever-
expanding consensus has taken
shape—first among scientists
and later among policymakers, farmers,
and eaters—that we need to preserve bio-
logical diversity in the plants we grow for
food. This need stems from the fact that,
around the world, farmers have steadily
transitioned from local varieties of many
different crop species to globalized lines of
a handful of staple grains and other agri-
cultural commodities.
Concern about the loss of crop diver-
sity has spawned eclectic efforts to pro-
tect “landraces,” “folk varieties,” “tra-
ditional strains,” “heritage vegetables,”
and other unique genetic combinations
understood as endangered. Today, crop
conservation strategies include stock-
ing seed and gene banks, holding local
seed swaps, and establishing catalogs of
culinary rarities. Despite their different
methods and often divergent political
and social visions, the individuals and
organizations behind these conservation
initiatives agree that the world’s once-
immense diversity in cultivated plants is
in grave danger.
Although the disappearance of diverse
crop varieties in the face of globalization
and industrialization is an undisputed
trend, generalized reports of diversity loss
have not always reflected local realities. For
example, blanket accounts of decline have
tended to overlook the sites where diver-
sity survives and thrives. These include the
farms and gardens of small-scale and sub-
sistence growers, people who have little, if
anything, to gain from adopting wholesale
seeds designed for industrial production.
Moreover, tallies of diversity also tend
to fixate on the loss of existing crop vari-
eties and overlook the appearance of new
ones. Farmers do not just adopt various
lines, they mix them to produce noveltypes. Professional breeders, too, create
new varieties. As a result, even where older
varieties are displaced, continuing innova-
tion by farmers and breeders might main-
tain diversity at a steady plateau.
The point of identifying patterns like
these is not to deny the reality of loss or the
importance of conservation. On the con-
trary, we know there has been an overall
decline in the diversity of crops we cultivate
for food, and we have many reasons to resist
and reverse this trend. But focusing too
intently on the narrative of inexorable loss—
to date, the dominant refrain in crop con-
servation—generates its own problems. For
example, failure to see crop diversity where
it survives or flourishes leads to missed
opportunities for preservation. Meanwhile,
emphasis on impending extinction creates
urgency for emergency off-site salvage in
seed banks to the detriment of longer-term
investments in on-farm conservation pro-
grams that would keep crops, and cultiva-
tors, in place.
Given that a one-size-fits-all account
of inexorable decline towards extinction
does not fit all circumstances, it’s clear
that we need to develop more-nuanced
accounts. In fact, experts working to
conserve crop diversity often insist that
making better observations—on farms, in
breeding programs, at local markets, or
in gene banks—is essential in developing
appropriate solutions. But we can go fur-
ther still. Tackling the challenges of suc-
cessful conservation also demands a close
look at its history.
In my new book, Endangered Maize,
I draw on the history of one of the world’s
most cultivated food plants—Zea mays, also
known as corn or maize—to account for how
scientists and states have pursued the con-
servation of crop diversity over the past 100
years. Of the many questions addressed in
the book, one in particular demands atten-tion, and it relates to the master narrative in
which crop diversity is in relentless, inexo-
rable decline. If this account isn’t always a
good reflection of what’s happening in the
world, then where did it come from? And
why has it proved so powerful?
Endangered Maize reveals interests
and concerns that are often obscured, and
sometimes deliberately masked, by overly
generalized declensionist tales. It high-
lights in particular how early conservation-
ists forged their methods for preserving
crop plants—their modes of collecting,
classification systems, storage technolo-
gies, negotiation tactics—around expec-
tations of social, political, and economic
transformations that would eliminate
diverse human communities and cultures.
For example, in the 1910s, corn experts
who hoped to study or sell Native Amer-
ican maize varieties undertook crash
collecting missions at reservations, con-
vinced that Native communities were
doomed to extinction—and their corn, too,Rethinking why and how we conserve crop genetic diversityBY HELEN ANNE CURRYBeyond Seed Banks
UC PRESS, January 2022