Hybrid Seeds in History and Historiography

Accounts of twentieth-century agricultural industrialization in the United States and beyond often center the production and distribution of commercial F1 hybrid seed as a pivotal development. The commercialization of hybrid corn seed in the 1930s was initially heralded as a science-driven advance in agricultural productivity. However, since the 1970s “hybrid seed” has been linked to many perceived perils attendant on industrialized agriculture, from the undermining of farmers’ independence to the diminishment of crop genetic diversity to the consolidation of corporate control over the global food system. First grouped with the semidwarf varieties of the Green Revolution to emblematize capital- and chemical-intensive agriculture, hybrids are today often lumped together with genetically modified (GM) varieties for much the same reason. This essay revisits the scholarship that helped produce this understanding of hybrid seed. It explores how and why the singular history of hybrid corn inflected understandings of crop breeding and seed production in general, contributing to lasting confusion about the promises and pitfalls of distinct approaches to crop development and the nature of hybrid seed.