[mif]

Hold your horses. I think the title overstates the impact of those old wheat varieties. Yes, genetic diversity is high. But, the reason that today’s wheat is less diverse is only the side effect of one of the most astonishing feasts ever pulled off by a single human: Norman Borlaug. His breeding program in the 1940s was the start of the “Green Revolution“. He’s the guy who saved the billions from starvation.

For further reading about his story, I can highly recommend „The Wizard and the Prophet“ by Charles C. Mann [2].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug [2] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34959327