The people of northern Belgium probably bred and refined the orange root in the latter part of the 1500 s. The Spanish brought the carrot to the Americas, first planting it on the island of Margarita, off the coast of Venezuela, sometime in the 1500 s. Known for their abundance of Vitamin A, a substance essential to healthy eyesight, carrots are being bred to produce even more of the vitamin. Beta III, a variety from the University of Wisconsin, contains 3 to 5 times more Vitamin A than the average carrot. Beta III was developed especially for growing in countries where severe Vitamin A deficiency leaves hundreds of thousands of people blind each year.
China is carrot king of the world, with the U.S. coming in second in production.
California leads the states in production.