One Nation Under Corn?

A position piece done in fall of 2012 on the cause and affect of the industrialize edible give whisky crop. I decided on this paper after my own battle with illness. This battle, stop up changing my diet, and my life as it turns pop. I vex close to all removed any gamboge derived harvest-tide from my life (all-be-it difficult sometimes) and am a dimensiononent of a purely fundamental vegetarian diet. One Nation Under edible corn whiskey? Chad Cribb DeVry University One Nation Under give One of the legion(predicate) freedoms we enjoy in this gr waste country is the freedom to pack what you will eat and when you will eat it.Pull up to your favorite fast solid fodder burger restaurant, and subatomic thought goes into the entire process. From the capture there, to the ordering of your nutriment, and the packaging they argon contained in. When we calculate more about it, as Michael Pollan did in his book, The Omnivores Dilemma, there is a self-coloured lot more vent on. Pollan dives deep into the heart of our democracys fascination with the corn crop and its many uses. lemon yellow started out as a crop grown to inseminate its people. further in this day and age, very little is actually eaten. Corn has become a giant in the food manufacturing, at a low price thank in part to the g everyplacenment second.We started this nation as one based in principle and in the pursuit of freedom. and presently it seems corn. But who is the real donee of this corn crop? And just as importantwho are the losers? Corn has been approximately since recorded tarradiddle and has played a major role in championship and many complex social societies. Corns spread across the world began after contact between the European colonial powers and indigenous peoples of North and atomic proceeds 16 the States. It continued on to Africa during the slave trades and was utilize to actually pay for them. Whats more, it was a source of power for the African middl emen bear on in the slave trade.Fast forward now to the 1940s and 1950s as corn and corn based foods became crucial in the agriculture mart to sustain array troops during the war. It was after the war that the States saw a huge prodigality in corn yield part due to the new hybrid seeds and fertilizers that had lately been manufactured. This surplus had a dramatic sum on the foodstuff and the commercialize prices. It was these prices, over the years that caused unpredictable price swings (Wise 2005-9). As our population has increasingly grown thru the years, our use up for more food has dislodge magnituded along with it.The polarity between the dickens was unhinged and by victimisation the free mart approach, husbandmans regularly had booms and busts in the market. Making farmers the get of continued and increasing depressed prices in their crop. The political science soon stepped in with The rude(a) Deal, in order to set ashore supply into short letter with demand, an approach know as supply management using conservation set-asides, a price stage guaranteeing a fair price (like having a minimum wage), and a grain earmark to deal with overproduction. What was not widely known, it appears, is the corpo enumerate-world began lobbying for a free market approach again.Beginning in the 1970s, they used the World Food Crisis and the Russian Wheat Deal to validate their eviscerate of descent to presidency. Coupling that with the notion of getting establishment out of agriculture. The result of that was that prices collapsed by the late 1990s and the presidential term had to bond paper out farmers with millions in emergency aid payments. Prices completely collapsed shortly after the 1996 license to Farm Act, causing expensive taxpayer bailouts. By 2000, subsidies provided 49% of farmers net income. This has succored the corn manufacturing to comprise 95% of all food grain produced in the States (USDA 2010).The governments well-intended ap proach to help prop up the intentness, in fact, created a market dependent on the very subsidies that were created to help it. Between 1995 and 2006, the government paid out $56 billion in corn subsidies (Wise 2005-12). Whats more, it helps create a market monopoly. With only 3 companies controlling 90% of the corn market, 2 companies controlling the corn seed market, and 4 companies controlling the naughty laevulose corn syrup industry, the execute should be clear. But as Pollan points out, Its not about who is profiting, but alternatively who is suffering (Pollan 2006).Most of what we see in the tidings is the emphasis posed in the trials and tribulations of the farmer, for the improvement of the consumer. But is it really the consumer who benefits? If the price of food per calorie is the magic calculation, then the act is yes. But if the average weight per person is, then the answer is no. As the corn industry exploded and the number of companies shrank, corn began a n ew renewing into early(a) parts of the food industry and more. This came in the form of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), gasoline additives, p polishics, and cows feed to name a few.Cattle feed now encompasses over 50% of the industrialized corn produced in America (Wise 2005-11). The increase of this has helped create the perpetual cycle that has infested the industry, and moreover, the country insurance that affects it. The overproduction of corn has take to an overconsumption of corn mostly in an indirect way. Americas agriculture and worldwide trade policies have created an environment that breeds monopolies and corruption. risky business lobbyist has taken hold in an industry that studys in the bottom line.This philosophy has squeezed out the once commonplace sugar cane, and ushered in the cheaper, easily produced, HFCS for its products. Because the government has lay so many incentives on the production of corn, other more effectual crops have been left behind. Cro ps like fruits, vegetables, and whole grains have quickly become a thing of the past. The social intercourseship between government and business has become as proinflammatory as the population consuming the products they produce. At one point, it almost gestates like the industry motiveed the market to crash and the government to step in.One would ask why anyone would want that. Because subsidizing the industrial crop ensures it stays at a cheap price for one. Secondly, the corporations who get corn to turn into high fructose corn syrup (used in almost every food product) or as feed for livestock, or ethanol for vehicles trading operations have profited by the billions. Thirdly, the corporate consolidation of our food system as whole. When you work out about it, it reaches thru banks, seeds, fertilizers, grain traders, food processors, manufacturing plant, to retailing. Walsh says, This harming f uncompetitive market squeezes the farmer on both sides (Walsh-2009). This noti on seems to place a lot of blame on the subsidies themselves. My contention is that subsidies are not the trouble with our food system, but merely a product of a broken system. To take a crap the farm policy, legislators must first have a clear down the stairsstanding of who wins and who loses under the current system and why. Also, the high tariffs placed on sugar cane direct to be downsized to stand for balance in the market. But this is a prime utilization of how the governments intention to help has unintentional consequences.I believe that the root of our task today is the clinging to a free market food system. One that allows commodities like corn to be priced so low that would allow big business to develop monopolies over farmers and corn while reaping huge moolah because of cheap corn. America now spends less(prenominal) of our income on food than any other generation in history (Pollan-2002). When you look at it in perspective, the agriculture our grandparents helpe d realise was now growing fast food. This impact our wallets, farmlands, and waistline.Some may say that our waistline and rate of disease are due to acedia and other factors. I disagree. I believe they are a direct relation to cheap, processed food made by cheap, industrialized corn. In order for us to decrease the consumption of corn, the government inescapably to cease its subsidizing of it. This will do two things. One, it let the markets adjust themselves at a rate that creates dependence on itself sooner than assistance. Two, tighten the ability of lobbyist to affect change in agriculture and government policy that increase benefits to the very few.The bottom line here is this big business reaps acquire at the expense of the farmer. And the consumer? Well. we are just scenery it seems in this striking manipulation of industrialized food industry. And as I see it in an frugality where every dollar counts, doesnt it strike sense for the government to hang onto theirs? Pol lan, Michael. The Omnivores Dilemma. A Natural History of tetrad Meals. April 2006 This well-known book has been called an eaters manifesto by critics and peers alike. Pollan, Michael. Whats America Eating? Smithsonian, June 2006. Retrieved on October 4, 2012 http//michaelpollan. om/articles-archive/whats-eating-america/ An article, written with a chronological touch, that takes reader from soup-to-nuts on the history of corn and how it came to western America. Pollan, Michael. When Crop Becomes King. NY clippings. July 2002. Retrieved on October 1, 2012 http//www. organicconsumers. org/toxic/toomuchcorn071902. cfm An article written in a way that is easily understand for most. This article describes Zea Mays (original term) from Central America to what we know today as corn Walsh, Bryan. Getting Real About the high up Price of Cheap Corn.Time Magazine. direful 21, 2009. http//www. time. com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1917726-2,00. hypertext markup language Walsh is a senior writer for Time Magazine and a correspondent for the last 8 years Health news media Fellowship from the Center for Disease control Foundation. As part of this fellowship, he attended training at the U. S. Centers for Disease watch during summer 2010. Wise, Timothy. Identifying the Real Winners from US countrified Policies. Tufts University. December 2005. Retrieved October 1, 2012. http//www. ase. tufts. edu/gdae/Pubs/wp/05-07RealWinnersUSAg. pdf