lexington’s Recent Comments

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  corn woes continue...

  
  Thanks Tom for your comments, you seemed to summarize what I was trying to say. Perhaps I didn't clarify that the movement to ag from hunter gatherer, the decline was due to the decline in variety of foodstuffs - which I feel seems to be becoming overwhelmingly similar to todays food economy and the increased use of corn within everything from coca-cola to yogourt. Ek! Very scary to me.
   And it seems that corns association with all things 'wonderful' continues. I am currently reading "The Way We Eat, Why Our Food Choices Matter" by Peter Singer and Jim Mason. Within their book, I found it interesting to note that farmers have attributed the growth of factory farm to government subsidies on corn which have kept their prices artificially low. U.S. bulk corn sells for 4 cents a pound (in 2006, stat from Singer) which is less than the cost of producing it - therefore, it is taxpayers who are producing this corn. These corn subsidies result not only in abhorrent conditions for factory farm animals, but it also wreaks havoc on the environment. Cows farmed for beef who naturally eat grass are instead given corn kernels, which require chemical fertilizers. So instead of using grass naturally harvested from the sun it creates increased emissions of fossil fuels - and we all know what that means. Not only that, they have to be given a daily dose of antibiotics so that they don't get 'feedlot bloat' because their physiology is not made to break down corn kernels - and can suffocate the animal, not to mention these antibiotics end up in the meat that people eat. As well, the run off of feces and urine from factory farm animals destroys local environments, not only for residents due to the stench but also local ecosystems - one example they present is pig farming in NC. In the summer of 1995, pigs in NC were producing 19 millions tons of waste per year (they are the second largest producer of pigs in the nation)! The unusually wet summer resulted in spilled animal waste, killing 10 MILLION fish in North Carolina! And this is just one little incident in one area...
  I feel that the largest issue with corn is the gov't subsidies, roughly $41 billion between 1995-2004 (http://artsci.wustl.edu/~anthro/articles/09harvest.html) h by Washington, it seems to produce this cyclical pattern of horrible externalities from environmental degradation to vile factory farm conditions to reducing the quality of foods. If the gov't didn't prop up the industry through subsidies, these artificial market signals would not enable inefficient, over-production of the crop that results in corn being found in much of the food industry, allows factory farms to expand their operations to produce more meat, which is of poorer quality. And these are just the issues within North America, it shouldn't be forgotten that these subsidies result in artificially low priced commodities being dumped on developing countries. Food aid from the US, and many other countries is simply buying up their excess production (which are being produced inefficiently), which ends up destroying local economies within developing nations because small farmers cannot compete with these low prices - thereby creating a dependency on exported inefficiently produced commodities from elsewhere when in fact, these nations could meet their own agricultural needs much more easily without these articifical markets which are created by corn subsidies. And I still haven't addressed the issue of Ethanol! I am from Canada, and my gov't has pledged $2 billion for ethanol production - ignoring recent reports that have been published stating that ethanol is in fact worse for the environment than gasoline when the whole process is examined. So frustrating. I just find it mind boggling the damage that these subsidies can do and the ignorance of gov't to look the other way on the issue.

  I was wondering if anyone can shed some light on the politics or reasons why the US and Europe continue to allow these false market signals to continue when the damage they are doing both locally and worldwide is so well documented. Is it unions, or trying to keep employment levels up?  I have heard that unions within Europe are quite strong, but I don't know the case for the US - particularly for corn. Anwyays, I would love to know anything or sources of information that could provide me with more information on it. On On the peculiar American habit of demonizing food posted 2 years, 6 months ago 22 Responses

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  corn: one of the triumphs of plant domestication

  
  I just wanted to make a comment regarding  corn being one of the 'triumphs' of humans domestication of plants. There are common misconceptions regarding how 'triumphant' corn domestication actually was for the health of native americans.
   Within Jared Diamonds book, The Third Chimpanzee - a book I thoroughly recommend, he addresses the common misconceptions regarding corn domestication, I will quote him directly since it is  researched and valid:
   "Corn, first domesticated in Central America thousands of year ago, became the basis of intensive farming in those valleys around A.D. 1000. Until then, Indian hunter-gatheres had skeltons 'so health it is somewhat discouraging to work with them,' as one paleopathologist complained. With the arrival of corn, Indian skeletons suddenly became interesting to study. The number of cavities in an average adult's mouth jumped from fewer than one to nearly seven, and tooth loss and abscesses became rampant. Enamel defects in children's milk teeth imply that pregnant and nursing mothers were severly undernourished. Anemia quadrupled in frequency; tuberculosis became established as an epidemic disease; half the population suffered from osteoarthritis and other degenerative diseases...Thus corn, usually considered the New World's blessing, actually proved to be a public-health disaster....They are in effect, cheap calories at the cost of poor nutrition. Today just three high-carbohydrate plants - wheat, rice, and corn - provide more than 50 percent of the calories consumed by the human species"

  - It seems as though unfortunately our soceity is going through again a similar phase of health issues that hunter-gatheres experienced when they transitioned to plant domestication. Our great dependence on corn, or I should say 'supplier induced' dependence on corn through gov't subsidies has resulted in a large majority of our population consuming, as Diamond says - empty calories at the cost of nutrition. On On the peculiar American habit of demonizing food posted 2 years, 6 months ago 22 Responses