Maize

At http://popular-archaeology.com/issue/december-2012/article/maize-was-a-k… … it is claimed that maize was the key to the first civilisations known from Peru, in the third millennium BC. This discovery, by painstaking probing of the ground, seems to overturn the otherwise popular assumption that civilisation started on the coast in cultures where marine resources were the prime focus, and only later adopted farming, which caused their populations to escalate. Maize is seen as the powerhouse behind a number of civilisations, including the Inca.

We then have a different story on maize at http://notrickszone.com/2013/03/01/the-good-maize-gets-burned-while-toxi… …. is another unintended consequence of the brave new world being ushered in by the green lobbyists. The story concerns Germany and huge swathes of the countryside being converted to grow maize – not to feed people but to feed biogas plants and ethanol producers. These are supposed to ween the Germans off co2 and fossil fuels. As a consequence humans are being fed with maize sourced from outside the EU where regulations are not so tight – and where chemicals are being used to kill pest species, chemicals otherwise banned from Germany. The lure of money is what is driving the situation, and a huge biogas market that investors are keen to grab a piece of the action, another pointless exercise in producing a product with no use other than filling the pockets of the environmental growth industry which fails to provide jobs but has lots of yummy scams for the adroit and worldly wise to pick some plums