The Curse of Corn: Eating for the Yankee Dollar
In the first section of his book, ‘Industrial Corn’ in The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan investigates the detrimental effects of the over-production of corn and the reasons for this. He also explains in detail the pernicious effects of the over-production of corn which are very shocking in their implications for us all. In order to do justice to the radical and shocking truths that Pollan reveals, radical alternatives must be explored in order to change this situation. In short, the over-production of corn must stop for the good of American farmers, for the environment, for American consumers and for the whole world.
The reasons for the huge over-production of corn are not widely known but are actually very simple. An acre of farmland in the Mid-West now produces at least five times the amount of corn that it produced 100 years ago, How has this situation come about. The answers lie in history, both political and economic history but also in the history of agricultural science. Uniformed people might think that this increased yield might be to do with greater mechanization: but, although this has led to fewer people farming the land and to much larger farms which itself causes damage to the top soil because some of it is simply blown away, the reasons for over-production lies elsewhere.
A key development was the discovery in by the German scientist, , about how to ‘fix’ nitrogen artificially and this has lead to ever-improving fertilizers which help increase yields. Furthermore, throughout the twentieth century (well before the recent developments in genetically modified crops), corn seeds were being selected so that varieties which could be grown very close together were being developed by seed manufacturers to increase yield. GM crop technology Ahs merely speeded up that process. The corn grown 100 years ago could not be grown closely together and so yields were relatively poor.
Political intervention has played its part. During the era of the New Deal corn farmers were guaranteed a minimum price for their corn: if the market price fell, the short fall in income was covered by the Federal Government. In the 1970s thus system was modified under the Nixon administration, but the effects are broadly the same- farmers are supported in their quest to produce more and more corn by the U. S. Government.
None of this would matter if the effects on human health, animal welfare and the environment were non-existent, but they do matter. The hegemony of corn is a time-bomb waiting to explode. The run-off of water contaminated with nitrogen means that certain mid0-wesy towns cannot use their water supplies from the tap on certain days of the year; the use of corn in all sorts of processed foods leads to heart disease obesity and diabetes; beef cattle are fed on corn which shortens their life expectancy and they are pumped full of antibiotics to keep them alive long enough in order to slaughter them so that we can eat cheap beef. Even the developing world is effected: the price of corn if developing countries falls because America produces so mush and therefore, developing world farmers are impoverished and starving.
There are many powerful vested interests who would prefer to see no change in the way corn is over-produced, but I would suggest action is needed at the Federal Government level to change radically Americans produce and use their food. A very small measure would be to have accurate lists of ingredients on every food product that we buy: in one sense we have these already but they are not very explicit; if a food package reads “natural raspberry flavour” or “gelling agent” it is not completely clear that those substances are actually made from corn.
More radically, we must encourage American farmers to diversify their crops. Since the government is already subsidizing farmers to grow too much corn, would it not be possible to subsidize farmers who grow corns other than corn? This is the only way, I feel, to break the strangle hold of King Corn. The measure would not cost more than the current system, but it world have long-term beneficial effects on the health of the whole nation.
