King Corn
Last night I watched King Corn which was in my Netflix queue. My uncle recommended I watch it after I saw Food Inc.
King Corn is about two young guys that rent an acre of farm land in Iowa to grow corn. They wanted to explore what was involved in growing corn and what happened to that corn once it was harvested.
The film does a good job of documenting the advent of the corn explosion in the US which started somewhere around 1973. That was when the US government reversed their position on farming. Instead of paying farmers to NOT grow certain crops to maintain prices they turned 180 degrees and decided to encourage farmers to grow as much as possible, specifically corn.
The combination of the government paying farmers to produce corn and the insatiable appetite of an always growing population has pushed corn production to insane levels. A good harvest out of an acre of corn used to be 40 bushels. Now farmers can squeeze as much as 200 bushels of corn out of that same acre.
Increasing the yield in corn has a whole lot to do with science, pesticides, heavy machinery and chemicals. They spray the fields with an ammonia based fertilizer. They kill weeds with herbicides. The corn that is sown has been engineered to be able to resist this particular herbicide.
The huge farm equipment makes tending massive corn fields relatively easy. In the film they were able to sow 31,000 seed in their 1 acre plot in 18 minutes.
The government subsidies to farmers for corn keeps the price of corn extremely cheap. Often corn is sold for less than it costs to produce. Even with selling their product at a loss farmers make money soley because of the government kickback.
The advent of dirt cheap corn set off a chain event of “progress” that is the origin of most of the food evils of modern day. Corn syrup became a sugar replacement and a much less expensive one at that. As a result corn based sweeteners are in almost all processed foods on a grocery shelf.
Corn also is the primary source of food for our meat supply. Cattle in feed lots are fed a diet that is is mostly corn despite them being natural grass eaters. The corn actually damages their digestive system. In order to combat this damage cattle are regularly given anti-biotics that wind up in the meat we all eat.
Again, it’s all about money. Feeding animals corn based products fattens them up quicker, meaning a faster turnover to the meat plants, which means more money.
The corn based sweeteners have all sorts of negative effects on a human beings metabolism. It is no coincidence that the percentage of obese people in the United States has sky rocketed since the advent of cheap corn. There is a direct correlation.
I enjoyed the movie, despite it’s eye opening, discouraging viewpoint on the American food system. There was no light at the end of the tunnel. We have been set down the tracks of a runaway cheap food train with no brakes. The push for cheaper and more available food has created this monster. Do you think big business will ever go back to the old ways because they were healthier for the American public? Fat chance.
Throw it in your Netflix queue, get educated.