Er originally comes from Mexico, belongs to the sweet grass family and grows up to three meters high in good weather conditions: German agriculture would be unimaginable without maize. In the 1960s, less than 100,000 hectares of maize was cultivated in Germany, but it is now the second most important crop. Maize grew on 2.65 million hectares in this country last year, which corresponds to almost a quarter of the arable land. This puts corn just behind Germany’s number one, wheat. This was last planted on an area of 2.86 million hectares.
The Federal Office for Agriculture and Food (BLE) praises the maize in the highest tones. “An almost perfect culture” is the “versatile, delivers above-average yields, lots of energy and, thanks to intensive breeding, can also be safely cultivated in unfavorable, cooler locations,” writes the authority. Conservationists have a different take on the corn. He needs precipitation in summer, but there is hardly any anymore. “Is silage maize the right concept for landscape use?” asked the German Nature Conservation Union, NABU for short, a few days ago during the news summer slump. His answer, unsurprisingly, is a pretty resounding no. The German Maize Committee countered with a speech in defense of the corn. It’s a culture war in the truest sense of the word.