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Attack of the killer corn
Posted by Tom Philpott at 11:40 AM on 22 Feb 2006
While researching my Poverty & the Environment piece on the food system, I
had occasion to look closely at the corn harvest, source of so much of our
cheap food.
As bad as the annual flood of cheap corn is for our health -- nutritionally
worthless high-fructose corn syrup, cheap feed for confined animals pumped
full of antibiotics and hormones -- it may be even worse for the
environment.


Bolstered by government subsidies that have averaged about $4 billion
annually since 1995, U.S. production accounts for nearly 40 percent of the
world's corn output. Every year, the USDA reports, corn farmers dump more
than 10 billion pounds of nitrogen fertilizer onto their fields -- a heavier
dose than for any other crop by a factor of nearly three. (Source: Download
table 2 from this USDA/Economic Research page.)
This annual cascade of "artificial fertility" (as the farmer and activist
Jason McKenney calls it) parches soil of nitrogen-fixing bacteria. It
crushes biodiversity and makes soils reliant on more fertilizer. According
to McKenney, less than a fifth of that nitrogen makes it into corn plants.

The rest leeches into groundwater, feeding algae blooms that smother
water-borne life from the northern reaches of the Mississippi River clear
down to the Gulf of Mexico, where a dead zone about the size of New Jersey
emerges each year, blotting out what was once a robust source of food and
jobs, to say nothing of an important marine habitat. As Richard Manning puts
it in the winter 2004 American Scholar (unavailable online):

Already, the Dead Zone has seriously damaged what was once a productive
fishery, meaning that a high-quality source of low-cost protein is being
sacrificed so that a source of low-quality, high-input subsidized protein
can blanket the Upper Midwest.
In a sense, by ending up in the Gulf, that fertilizer is coming home:
nitrogen-based fertilizer derives from natural gas.

What do we get for this taxpayer-funded, soil-and-marine-life destroying
harvest? For one thing, we get way too much corn.

In 2004, U.S. farmers produced a mind-numbing 11.8 billion bushels of corn
(a bushel equals 56 pounds). Even given such dubious government-generated
uses as ethanol and high-fructose corn syrup, even with the NAFTA-sanctioned
dumping of cheap U.S. corn on the Mexican market, they only managed to sell
10.8 billion bushels.

For this feat of overproduction, the government paid them $4.5 billion.

Let's be clear here. The great bulk of farms are being left off of this
gravy train. Environmental Working Group reckons that in 2004, 20% of
subsidized corn farms received 80% of that $4 billion payout. A few big
farms are grabbing most of the cheese.

The real beneficiaries of this twisted system aren't most corn growers; it's
the buyers, processing giants like Archer Daniels Midland and Cargill. That
one-billion-bushel surplus of corn in 2004 exerted enormous downward
pressure on corn prices. In 2004, a bushel -- 56 pounds -- of corn brought
in $1.95 to the farmer. That's about 3 cents a pound. At that rate, the only
way a farm can make any money at all is to scale up as much as possible and
then hope for a government check. No wonder mid-sized farms are rapidly
going extinct.

Archer Daniels Midland makes a killing off of our cheap-food system; a few
mega-farms in the Midwest do OK as well. But for most people, and for the
environment, what we get is a government-underwritten disaster.

I can't imagine a better place for greens, social-justice activists, and
real-food enthusiasts to unite for change.



I got this today and decided to share it with a few of you. It makes me sad
as a gardener and someone who takes stewarding the land seriously. I mean,
I stand here helpless with my hands outstretched wondering how these
governmental idiots can allow our HOME and LAND and water and such to be so
trashed all in the name of money. I have NEVER seen so many fat ass people
in my short life, and I KNOW it's because the food industries are using more
corn products in our food. High frutose corn syrup for sweeteners, making
the children (and adults) crave sweet more, the filler foods are cheaper,
the masses of people is almost sickening if it weren't so frightening. I
see women and men who look like white Sumo wrestlers walking thru Walmart's
and such. sigh........sorry........

spring has grabbed me by the hair and I'm about to write about my gardens. I
take Grist! e-magazine and it's highly informative..........and depressive.
I see this and I wonder what my gardening friends across the pond must think
of us as people to allow such travesty and horror to continue. And don't
get me started about Katrina. Have no doubt that I do not live with my head
in the clay soil, I am very aware of the situations around me and the world,
but sometimes it's just overwhelming. I apologize for the opinion of the
above as well as my mini-rant about the appearances of the people around me.
All along I've been telling people that it's in the freaking food for crying
out loud............why else would a woman who is well past the pause that
heats and torments (menopause, that is) would ovulate after eating a
stripped down McD's hamburger with cheesy material with only pickles and
mustard on the rare occaison that I find I have to get something to eat on
the fly. (the fish and chips would be better were it not for what they
probably fry the fish and chips in, I hope it's soy oil, I'd prefer peanut
or canola, but that's just me, and I won't eat the potato's.....)

now that I've blown, I'll hopefully be better and will settle down and give
you an update on what's popping up here in Fairy Holler. thanks for
humoring and enduring me.......
maddie,

--
"The flowers, the gorgeous, mystic multi-colored flowers are not the flowers
of life; and it has been a most precious pleasure to have temporarily
strolled in your garden"
Lord Buckley, his Royal Hipness