Maize can't survive on its own in the wild without us?

I learned something very interesting about Maize yesterday and I want to share with everyone on Steemit. It’s funny when I actually think about it, maize is such a big crop, so important to so many people and yet it is so vulnerable. We already know that the seed is stuck to the cob. If we don’t plant it, it will not spread. So it has no way of sowing itself. It is a kind of a partnership between us human beings and the crops, I guess.

I used to shell maize when I was a child, for hours, till my thumb would ache, part of the reason why I celebrated when they said let's go to the city, I was 12 years when I moved to Accra.

We used to do it on the veranda with the maize husks flying everywhere. It was a terrible chore but as I grew I learned to love working and I almost missed those days. But back then I did it with a mentality of it had to be done otherwise, there would be no crop the following season. We had to do for the maize what it couldn’t do for itself.

It’s not always a terribly dignified relationship to be honest. Sometimes it looks like a burden and I can relate it to taking care of a little baby, they can't do it for themselves so you do for them but when they grow up, they'll give you so many benefits as a good parent. With maize, you have to plant at the right time, you have to weed, you have to check for disease. The maize just sits there, it requires so much from you. I was admiring a field last week. The maize was so green, so healthy. But all I could think of was how many days it was going to take to harvest it. Not a very noble sentiment I suppose.

The colour of the maize is another thing. That yellow or sometimes white one, then if you're not already aware there's red, blue, purple and even black.

Of course, the relationship we have with maize is reciprocal. We need the maize as well. For food, for lots of things. But still, I'm thinking about what we and this grain that can’t seem to let go of its own seed have created together. We have made a civilisation out of it, but we have also tied ourselves to the field. Every year, we have to do it. We plant because we have to, because the maize will not sow itself. The maize grows because we planted it.

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