What was the greatest benefit of the columbian exchange?
Marissa, I think it was the exchange of plants and animals. It transformed the European, American, African, and Asian ways of life. New foods became staples of human diets, and new growing regions opened up for crops. For example, before AD 1000, potatoes were not grown outside of South America. By the 1840s, Ireland was so dependent on the potato that a diseased crop led to the devastating Irish Potato Famine. Since being introduced by 16th century Portuguese traders, who brought them from the Americas, maize and manioc replaced traditional African crops as the continent’s most important staple food crops. New crops that had come to Asia from the Americas via Spanish colonizers in the 16th century, including maize and sweet potatoes, contributed to the population growth in Asia, too. You can read more here: http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Columbi…
