David Fairchild
1869 – 1954
David Fairchild was a pioneering American botanist, explorer, and author who served as the head of the USDA’s Office of Seed and Plant Introduction for over 37 years. During that time, he traveled the globe and introduced thousands of plant species to the United States, including soybeans, mangoes, avocados, nectarines, dates, and countless other crops that Americans now take for granted.
His work fundamentally reshaped American agriculture and diets. Before Fairchild, most of these crops simply did not exist in the US food system. He saw the world as a living catalogue of possibility, and spent his career proving that the right plant in the right place could change everything.
MarketsM8’s voice assistant is called Fairchildbecause it does for today’s produce buyers what David Fairchild did for American agriculture: connects people with the data they need to make better decisions about what to source, from where, and when. Fairchild brought the world’s crops to America. Our Fairchild brings the world’s prices to your screen.
His story is brilliantly told in The Food Explorerby Daniel Stone, a book that reads like an adventure novel and reveals how one man’s curiosity shaped the produce aisle as we know it.
Read “The Food Explorer” by Daniel Stone →Try asking Fairchild a question on the price lookup page. Just tap the mic and ask something like “What are apple prices in Atlanta right now?”