America: Built For and By Corn
“Should we count the corn fields?” my friends joked as we hopped into the car. We were in northern Nevada and after dropping me off in Idaho they, for their first time, were continuing to drive across the US, all the way back to Vermont. The stereotypical America we knew played into how we imagined the drive. Our own home states are less covered in corn, but here, it was a ubiquitous crop and we quickly counted up to fifteen corn fields. My friends facetiously pondered how they would measure the fields that went for miles and miles beside the car window as they passed through the midwest–is a two mile long field counted as one?
What they could not do from the car window has been calculated by others: corn occupies 87 million acres across the US. Soybeans are the only real competitor covering 84 millions acres since farmers rotate this grain and legume for soil health. No other crop comes close.
The unique biology and versatility of corn gives the crop an edge over other crops. Then, encouraged by you and I in the form of extensive taxpayer supported subsidies, corn is grown by numerous farmers who would be irrational not to do so. Due to this mountainous production of corn every use has been exploited, including some that break biological routines.
Part I: Corn’s Advantages
Like any plant, corn photosynthesizes to produce sugars to grow and reproduce, but corn has a unique advantage. Most plants operate under a normal C3 photosynthetic pathway. In the C3 pathway, Rubisco, a very common enzyme, captures or fixes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to use in photosynthesis and ultimately produce organic compounds important for the plants survival. Due to its evolutionary history, Rubisco is not good at fixing carbon dioxide because it also fixes oxygen from the atmosphere. Since there is far more oxygen in the air than carbon dioxide, Rubisco spends wasteful energy capturing and fixing the wrong compound. Corn and some other plants have evolved a unique difference to fix this problem: the C4 pathway. In a separate cell a different enzyme called PEPC far more efficiently fixes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, because it discriminates against oxygen, and makes carbon dioxide ready for photosynthesis. This technique effectively gives corn a growing advantage.
Not only does corn have this remarkable advantage, but also it is a versatile and high yielding crop. While the majority of the corn passed by my friends’ car window from the great plains of Nebraska to Iowa, it appeared in every state of the drive from Nevada to Vermont. The adaptability of this plant to many environments has helped it become a valuable and desirable crop for farmers all across the US. Corn is also easily genetically manipulable. Around the 1920s and 30s scientists were able to alter the growth of corn such that yields exploded. Since then for nearly six decades corn yields continued to increase. But, biology is not the only favor given to corn: money provides a foundation.
Back home in New Hampshire, in a state not monopolized by corn, I wandered the aisles of the grocery store. The great varieties in modern day food stem from endless complicated products that were unimaginable to Americans just a century ago. Yet, this great variety fools us. Concealed in these products is corn.
I saw corn as flour in the tortilla chips, as corn syrup in candy, as sweeteners in canned fruit, gum, frostings and jams. Corn as oil in the mayonnaise, as pulp in paper products, and as feed for the beef. It was in my gas as I drove home. Corn is modified into an endless array of products; not one aisle is free from the grasps of this massive industry (figure 1).
The biology of corn is advantageous and it is particularly well suited to grow in the US, but subsidies from the federal government are an important and influential nudge. Corn and a few other crops receive the bulk of the money–corn farmers alone received $4.5 billion in one subsidy category in one year. Yet, a number of subsidy categories support corn farmers every year. When the price of corn is too low compared to a (high) reference price, farmers are paid. If the yield collapses, farmers are paid. When crop insurance is expensive (as it is), farmers receive money to pay for it. When the administrative costs of the insurance companies are too high (as they are), the government helps pay for it. Since it is advantageous for farmers to grow corn, land that would have been deemed unsuitable to farm is being cultivated. Thus if the government wants land conserved or cultivated land improved, farmers are paid to do so.
All said, the price of corn is 22% less than the price to produce it, 50 cents off of $2.25 a bushel. We pay out billions to save mostly a few large farms: about ⅓ of the subsidies go to the largest 4% of farms. Many people are not convinced this is the right thing our food systems and our health.
Part II: Corn’s Effects
The price of corn is artificially low such that the commodity is often employed in products we would not have normally considered. Nearly 40% of the corn produced in the US is used as animal fodder (figure 1). Cattle, for example, are shipped to feed lots at six months of age where they are “finished” then slaughtered. These feedlots utilize an abundance of corn and feed it to the cattle, helping support the corn business.
But cows are ruminants; corn is not suited for them, which is a major problem.
Ruminants are a unique type of animal that have a digestive system composed of multiple stomachs allowing for the difficult digestion of grass, which we and many other animals, can not do. Cows and other grazers use their extra stomach, called a rumen, loaded with bacteria to ferment the grass into usable protein.
The prolificacy of corn provides cheaper food than grass for feedlots to fatten cows faster.
This process has wreaked havoc on the cows. When cows eat corn a slime develops on the inside of the rumen. Typically, cows produce a lot of gas during their digestive processes, but this slime restricts the gas causing build up in the rumen. The rumen inflates it until it begins to press into the lungs and suffocate the cow. Tubes are readily applied to many cows to fix this issue, but a slow response results in death.
The corn also makes cows’ stomachs too acidic compared to its naturally neutral state. This change weakens the cow’s immune system, making it vulnerable to feedlot diseases which can be rampant and common. This diet would kill the cow, but the feedlots kill them first. The rapid growth of a corn fed cow is dangerous and unhealthy, but feedlots can keep the cow alive just long enough to slaughtered it later. Still, 13% of slaughtered cows have abscessed livers.
The feedlots turn grazing animals that reach maturity in three to five years into protein making machines reaching maturity in 14–16 months. This rapid growth comes with great costs, not only to the cows health, but to antibiotics. Antibiotics are prolifically employed to keep the cows healthy. Antibiotics must be given to fend off diseases that the cows become vulnerable to when their diet weakens their immune system and are packed in close quarters. The rampant use of antibiotics fuels antibiotic resistance. The use of antibiotics is so mainstream that bacteria are becoming resistant into what are colloquially called ‘superbugs’. Theses superbugs prove to be a constant challenge for scientists who are continually trying to fend off new superbugs.
Corn is only allowed to dominate our agricultural fields because massive industries demand it.
The corn industry is not only unhealthy for cows, but also supports our consumption of unhealthy foods, which ultimately we pay for in health care costs and life years. A recent study suggested that the food we specifically subsidized is associated with being more unhealthy. The high fructose corn syrup that is plentiful in sodas, prepackaged meals, and condiments along with grain fed beef has been demonstrated to be unhealthy. Yet, we pay taxes to subsidize the production of corn that enables all these products to be made, then we pay for it again in diminished health and increased health care costs.
Conclusion
The expansive fields of corn do not only affect the view driving across middle America, but corn is felt in many aspects of our lives. From the burger at your road side stop, to the gas powering your car and the sugar in soda, corn fuels us. Yet we pay for it in the rise of antibiotic resistance, in taxes, in health care costs, in shortened lives.
