Columbus the Contributor
◆ Christopher Columbus (1451-1506) is famous as the navigator and explorer who reportedly “discovered America.” However, the book Environment—Resources, Pollution & Society (1971) observes:
“When Columbus crossed the Atlantic in 1492 and established the link between the Old World and the New, he set in motion an exchange of crops between the two worlds, some of which found a much better ecological niche in the world to which they were introduced than in the one from which they originally came. As this exchange of crops progressed, the earth’s population-sustaining capacity expanded greatly.”
This is illustrated with the potato, which Spanish explorers introduced into Europe from South America in the 1500’s. It became a staple food item in many parts of Europe. “The Irish population grew rapidly for several decades on the strength of the expanded food supply which the potato . . . made available.”
Corn, a cereal crop indigenous to the Americas, is now produced earth wide. It is the principal food staple in Kenya and is even exported from Thailand. On the other hand, wheat, oats, barley and rye were brought to the Americas and grew very well over much of the Great Plains where the moisture is generally insufficient for raising corn.
As to livestock, the exchange has been mainly one way. We read: “The New World is indebted to the Old for all of its livestock, except the llama and the alpaca, and, with the exception of the turkey and Muscovy duck, for all of its poultry.”
Thus some of the great advances in agriculture and the population-sustaining capacity of the earth stem from the exchanges set in motion by Columbus. “It is not customary to associate Columbus with a major technological advance in the earth’s population-sustaining capacity, but his contribution was profound.”—Pages 54, 55.