When A Crop Becomes King!

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When a Crop Becomes King JoAnn Guest

Jul 25, 2002 14:04 PDT

When a Crop Becomes King

(Posted: 19-Jul-02)

 

 

New York Times | By MICHAEL POLLAN | July 19, 2002

 

CORNWALL BRIDGE, Conn. - Here in southern New England the corn is

already waist high and growing so avidly you can almost hear the

creak

of stalk and leaf as the plants stretch toward the sun. The ears of

sweet corn are just starting to show up on local farm stands,

inaugurating one of the ceremonies of an American summer. These days

the

nation's nearly 80 million-acre field of corn rolls across the

countryside like a second great lawn, but this wholesome, all-

American

image obscures a decidedly more dubious reality.

 

Like the tulip, the apple and the potato, zea mays (the botanical

name

for both sweet and feed corn) has evolved with humans over the past

10,000 years or so in the great dance of species we call

domestication.

The plant gratifies human needs, in exchange for which humans expand

the

plant's habitat, moving its genes all over the world and remaking

the

land (clearing trees, plowing the ground, protecting it from its

enemies) so it might thrive.

 

Corn, by making itself tasty and nutritious, got itself noticed by

Christopher Columbus, who helped expand its range from the New World

to

Europe and beyond. Today corn is the world's most widely planted

cereal

crop. But nowhere have humans done quite as much to advance the

interests of this plant as in North America, where zea mays has

insinuated itself into our landscape, our food system - and our

federal

budget.

 

One need look no further than the $190 billion farm bill President

Bush

signed last month to wonder whose interests are really being served

here. Under the 10-year program, taxpayers will pay farmers $4

billion a

year to grow ever more corn, this despite the fact that we struggle

to

get rid of the surplus the plant already produces. The average

bushel of

corn (56 pounds) sells for about $2 today; it costs farmers more

than $3

to grow it. But rather than design a program that would encourage

farmers to plant less corn - which would have the benefit of lifting

the

price farmers receive for it - Congress has decided instead to

subsidize

corn by the bushel, thereby insuring that zea mays dominion over its

125,000-square mile American habitat will go unchallenged.

 

At first blush this subsidy might look like a handout for farmers,

but

really it's a form of welfare for the plant itself - and for all

those

economic interests that profit from its overproduction: the

processors,

factory farms, and the soft drink and snack makers that rely on

cheap

corn. For zea mays has triumphed by making itself indispensable not

to

farmers (whom it is swiftly and surely bankrupting) but to the

Archer

Daniels Midlands, Tysons and Coca-Colas of the world.

 

Our entire food supply has undergone a process of " cornification " in

recent years, without our even noticing it. That's because, unlike

in

Mexico, where a corn-based diet has been the norm for centuries, in

the

United States most of the corn we consume is invisible, having been

heavily processed or passed through food animals before it reaches

us.

Most of the animals we eat (chickens, pigs and cows) today subsist

on a

diet of corn, regardless of whether it is good for them. In the case

of

beef cattle, which evolved to eat grass, a corn diet wreaks havoc on

their digestive system, making it necessary to feed them antibiotics

to

stave off illness and infection. Even farm-raised salmon are being

bred

to tolerate corn - not a food their evolution has prepared them for.

Why

feed fish corn? Because it's the cheapest thing you can feed any

animal,

thanks to federal subsidies. But even with more than half of the 10

billion bushels of corn produced annually being fed to animals,

there is

plenty left over. So companies like A.D.M., Cargill and ConAgra have

figured ingenious new ways to dispose of it, turning it into

everything

from ethanol to Vitamin C and biodegradable plastics.

 

By far the best strategy for keeping zea mays in business has been

the

development of high-fructose corn syrup, which has all but pushed

sugar

aside. Since the 1980's, most soft drink manufacturers have switched

from sugar to corn sweeteners, as have most snack makers. Nearly 10

percent of the calories Americans consume now come from corn

sweeteners;

the figure is 20 percent for many children. Add to that all the

corn-based animal protein (corn-fed beef, chicken and pork) and the

corn

qua corn (chips, muffins, sweet corn) and you have a plant that has

become one of nature's greatest success stories, by turning us

(along

with several other equally unwitting species) into an expanding race

of

corn eaters.

 

So why begrudge corn its phenomenal success? Isn't this the way

domestication is supposed to work?

 

The problem in corn's case is that we're sacrificing the health of

both

our bodies and the environment by growing and eating so much of it.

Though we're only beginning to understand what our cornified food

system

is doing to our health, there's cause for concern. It's probably no

coincidence that the wholesale switch to corn sweeteners in the

1980's

marks the beginning of the epidemic of obesity and Type 2 diabetes

in

this country. Sweetness became so cheap that soft drink makers,

rather

than lower their prices, super-sized their serving portions and

marketing budgets. Thousands of new sweetened snack foods hit the

market, and the amount of fructose in our diets soared.

 

This would be bad enough for the American waistline, but there's

also

preliminary research suggesting that high-fructose corn syrup is

metabolized differently than other sugars, making it potentially

more

harmful. A recent study at the University of Minnesota found that a

diet

high in fructose (as compared to glucose) elevates triglyceride

levels

in men shortly after eating, a phenomenon that has been linked to an

increased risk of obesity and heart disease. Little is known about

the

health effects of eating animals that have themselves eaten so much

corn, but in the case of cattle, researchers have found that corn-

fed

beef is higher in saturated fats than grass-fed beef.

 

We know a lot more about what 80 million acres of corn is doing to

the

health of our environment: serious and lasting damage. Modern corn

hybrids are the greediest of plants, demanding more nitrogen

fertilizer

than any other crop. Corn requires more pesticide than any other

food

crop. Runoff from these chemicals finds its way into the groundwater

and, in the Midwestern corn belt, into the Mississippi River, which

carries it to the Gulf of Mexico, where it has already killed off

marine

life in a 12,000 square mile area.

 

To produce the chemicals we apply to our cornfields takes vast

amounts

of oil and natural gas. (Nitrogen fertilizer is made from natural

gas,

pesticides from oil.) America's corn crop might look like a

sustainable,

solar-powered system for producing food, but it is actually a huge,

inefficient, polluting machine that guzzles fossil fuel - a half a

gallon of it for every bushel.

 

So it seems corn has indeed become king. We have given it more of

our

land than any other plant, an area more than twice the size of New

York

State. To keep it well fed and safe from predators we douse it with

chemicals that poison our water and deepen our dependence on foreign

oil. And then in order to dispose of all the corn this cracked

system

has produced, we eat it as fast as we can in as many ways as we can -

 

turning the fat of the land into, well, fat. One has to wonder

whether

corn hasn't at last succeeded in domesticating us.

 

Michael Pollan is the author, most recently, of " The Botany of

Desire: A

Plant's-Eye View of the World. "

 

NOTICE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this

material is

distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior

interest

in receiving this information for research and educational purposes.

 

 

 

JoAnn Guest

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