UW Jackson School and biology honors graduate Kayanna Warren wrote her senior honors thesis on the economic and some of the ecological effects of a recent switch from a landrace variety of corn, grown for human and animal consumption, to commercially bred (not gm), high-yielding, high-input hybrid varieites. Here Kayanna (c) with the help of Yangjuan college student Ali Vugo (r) interviews village elder Mgebbu Yyhxo about his corn plantings

People have in fact experienced a gain in income when they have planted hybrid varieties, enabling them to buy rice to eat and to send their children to school. But hybrid corn requires many more cash inputs, as well as more labor, and many people think it hardens the soil, making it difficult to plant several years in a row. And the plastic film mulch that covers the crop at the beginning of spring (r), is unsightly and expensive, and may cause environmental problems as well.

Kayanna Warren's honors thesis in the Jackson School of International Studies, entitled To Market: China's Changing Market Participation in Remote Rural Areas won the University of Washington Libraries Research Award for Undergraduates in 2005.