North Carolina Kudzu
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The Columbian Exchange is an ongoing process that can still be found in the world today. Kudzu for example, is a weed that was introduced to North Carolina as recent as the past hundred years. It originated in Japan and was brought to America. Experts in the early 1930s believed that the protein-rich kudzu could be grown in poor soils and began to advocate its production to farmers(Stewarts, 2002). However, like a lot of things in the Columbian Exchange, there were unintended consequences of the use of Kudzu. Stewarts (2002) States, "The U.S. Department of Agriculture removed kudzu from its list of acceptable cover crops for its Agricultural Conservation Program in the 1950s, and in 1972 it demoted the plant to weed status. By 1993 a study by the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment claimed that kudzu accounted for about $50 million annually in lost farm and timber production." Kudzu is a growing problem that many North Carolinas have to deal with today. Its rapid growth causes many issues on properties and especially to farmers. There are some measures that can be taken to cut back the spread of this weed, but it takes a lot of persistence due to the weed's rapid growth. This is an example of the influence that the biological exchange of goods can have on the world and specifically on North Carolina.