Part 1. Section 6. THE LOSS OF VEGETABLE AND FRUIT VARIETIE

VEGETABLES

According to the Rural Advancement Foundation International, 75 types of vegetables or about 97 percent of varieties available in 1900, have become extinct. Only 3 percent of varieties have survived in the last 80 years.

 

. Peas -  There were 2,500 varieties of peas.  Now, 2 types of peas occupy 96 percent of commercial production.

 

. Tomatoes - 80.6 percent of varieties were lost from 1903 to 1983. Tomatoes could not be grown commercially without the disease resistance varieties developed from wild species.

 

. Lettuce - 92.8 percent of lettuce varieties were lost between 1903 to 1983. Most lettuce grown today is of the head Iceberg variety, those heavy-duty indestructible cannonballs.

 

. Potatoes - There were once 5,000 varieties worldwide. Today, there are 4 major commercial varieties. 

 

. Corn - 90.8 percent of field corn varieties have been lost from 1903 to 1983.  96.1 percent of sweet corn varieties have been lost. Field Corn is grown on about 80 million acres, more than 1/5 of U.S. farmland. About 60 percent of field corn comes from genetically modified seed, which means we are eating lots of genetically engineered foods. 

 

Much of the corn grown today has DNA of Bt, a natural insecticide, inserted into its genes. The recently recalled StarLink corn was a Bt variety.  StarLink was approved only for animal consumption because it is a possible allergen.  Despite this ban, it was found on supermarket shelves in Taco Bell taco shells and other corn products about 4 years ago.  Most of the sweetener in everything from Coke to pastries comes from corn syrup. 

 

Two percent of corn used in the U.S. goes directly to feeding people, 19 percent goes into processed foods like corn syrup and chips and 75 percent is used to feed livestock. More than two-thirds of all the cereal grains are consumed by animals.

 

David Pimental of Cornell has determined that the U.S. could adequately feed 800 million people with grain used in livestock production, ironically, the same number of people that go hungry every day.

 

FRUITS  

. Apples - There were 7,000 named varieties in the last century. By the dawn of the 21st century, 85 percent had been lost.  Just a couple apple varieties account for 90 percent of the apple crop sold in the United States. And these apples aren't the best- tasting varieties; they are easy to ship and look good on the supermarket shelves, but ...  

 

The most popular apples in the U.S. are: Red Delicious, Golden Delicious, Gala, Fuji, Granny Smith, McIntosh, Rome, Ida Red, Jonathan, and Empire. Washington State grows 60 percent of the 250 million bushels of apples grown annually in the U.S. 

 

. two apple varieties account for more than half of the U.S. apple crop. 

. 14 percent of apple farms account for 83 percent of the apple harvest. 

. 7 percent of pear farms account for 61 percent of the pear harvest

. 4 percent of peach farms grow 60 percent of the peach harvest.

 

Source:

This information was taken from Fatal Harvest, The Tragedy of Industrial Agriculture, Island Press, 2000, edited by Andrew Kimbrel.