Paper short abstract:

This paper traces the cultural histories of non-native forage maize in agricultural Denmark. It considers the historical eruption of engineered feed crops through the concept of transplantation ecologies: distorted environmental patches where science defines the limits of agricultural production.

Paper long abstract:

The summer of 2023 was tough on Danish farmers, struggling through the longest drought in recorded national history to secure enough feed for a livestock population that outnumbers humans 5-fold. While traditional forage crops such as barley and wheat withered, lush rows of forage maize shot up under the hot sun. This paper traces the cultural histories of these forage maize as “Anthropocene eruptions” (Tsing 2016) in agricultural Denmark, where livestock farmers have come to know dry heat as “corn weather”. In the 1970s, and following decades of research and international collaboration, Danish plant and soil scientists pioneered a novel forage maize variety from non-native transplants that would grow even in the cold and wet Nordic climate. With this strong-stemmed and strategically deep rooted corn variety, agricultural baselines transformed alongside natural environments: corn rows in fields previously used as grazing pastures meant cheap access to fiber and energy, the necessary tools of increasing livestock herds. By analyzing the industrial and environmental changes that ensued as engineered forage maize spread across rural Denmark, the paper asks how the historical introduction of a viable Danish corn variety simultaneously implied (re)creating Danish nature as viable for corn. To this end, the paper considers the historical eruption of forage maize and other feed crops in otherwise hostile places through the concept of transplantation ecologies: modernist and distorted environmental patches sponsored by the idea that state-of-the-art science and technology, rather than particular landscapes and their climates, should define the safe operating space for agricultural production.