In the Russians’ steppes: the introduction of Russian wheat on the Great Plains of the United States of America

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, wheat varieties from the Russian steppes were introduced on the Great Plains of the USA, a region with a similar environment. The introduction was partly a by-product of the migration of German farmers from the steppes to the Great Plains in the 1870s. The US Department of Agriculture, eager to promote American wheat production in a competitive world market for grain in which Russia was in the lead, sought out wheat varieties on the steppes that were suitable for the Great Plains. Russian wheat varieties became mainstays on the Great Plains for the next few decades, while Russian agriculture declined under Soviet power. On the basis of research on both sides of the Atlantic, this article sheds light on an important aspect of the global exchange of peoples and crops that has shaped the agricultural and economic history of societies around the world since the invention of agriculture.