Mexico has been home to diverse varieties of corn, or maíz, for millennia.

Junetesis believed the birthplace of corn was in southern Mexico,

where it was first domesticated by indigenous people 9,000 years ago.

La comida más importante de México es el maíz.

Es una planta, que siempre va a tener diferentes tamaños y colores.

That's Fernando Lepos.

He's a furniture designer, and he's also obsessed with corn.

Traditionally, indigenous people were chosen and planted the type of maíz,

according to the altitude of their lands, the type of soil and the amount of rain.

That's why all maíz are different.

In the 1990s, the North American Free Trade Agreement, NAFTA,

opened Mexico's market to a flood of cheaply produced genetically modified corn,

or maíz transgenic.

It destroyed the price and diversity of native corn,

severely affecting the livelihoods of small farmers or granjeros.

Las comunidades ya no podían vivir del maíz, y eso destruyó pueblos enteros.

Desde que se firmó el NAFTA, más de 2 millones de granjeros abandonaron sus comunidades

para buscar trabajo en las ciudades.

Fernando felt like he had to do something to help these farmers save their jobs

and to save Mexico's native corn, but he wasn't sure what.

He would soon discover that the answer was in the least valuable part of the corn itself,

in what most people throw away.

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