Understanding Corn
Corn is an extraordinary plant. First domesticated in Mexico, approximately 10,000 years ago, it was initially shunned by European explorers. However, they soon had change of heart once their old world crops failed to flourish, and the rest is history. Fast forward a couple hundred years and corn now covers ninety million acres of land in America alone. Globally, it accounts for approximately 10% of total crop production. So ubiquitous is corn in our food system, that an estimated 70% of the atoms in the body of the average American originally came from its yellow kernels.
Why has corn achieved such dominance in the world of agriculture? Why not broccoli, carrots, or tomatoes?
For one, corn is very good at converting raw materials into chemical energy. If you grow an acre of corn, you will get far more calories per unit of land than you would from nearly any other crop. Just as oil’s energy density has led to its domination of the world’s fuel economy, corn’s energy density has led to its domination of the world’s agricultural economy.
Another key factor in corn’s rise was the availability of ammonium nitrate after the end of World War Two. Agricultural scientists repurposed this compound, once used in explosives, into a cheap form of fertilizer. This allowed corn to be grown in the same fields year after year, without depleting the ground of nitrogen (which it does far more quickly than many other crops).
Additionally, corn is incredibly versatile. We can eat it, process it into syrup and use it as a sweetener, fuel our cars with it, and feed it to our animals. Few other crops have found applications in as many aspect of our lives.
Corn’s incredible energy density has led to its massive adoption by the biofuel and livestock industries. As it stands today, we use approximately 40% of corn grown in the U.S to create ethanol, and 36% to feed animals. Unfortunately, both uses are wreaking havoc on the environment. Corn-based ethanol, widely touted as a promising alternative fuel, has a very unfavorable EROEI (energy returned on energy invested). This means we must put a large amount of energy into producing it, relative to how much energy we get by burning it. In some instances, the energy return on ethanol production is actually negative. However, subsidies, corporate interest, and general delusion, have managed to keep the corn-based ethanol industry afloat.
When compared to the meat industry however, the ethanol industry seems tame in terms of its environmental impact. After all, ethanol does burn more cleanly than gasoline, and most of the issues associated with ethanol production are simply due to the unfortunate byproducts of corn agriculture. The meat industry on the other hand, is one of the world’s largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions.
Corn is one of the primary reasons why the meat industry grew to its current size. This is mainly because subsidies, and corn’s natural energy density, have made corn-based feed very inexpensive. Cheap feed allows for the production of cheap meat, and cheap meat is easy to sell.
The expansion in the meat industry, facilitated in large part by corn, has been truly mind-blowing. As it stands today, we use about 80% of the world’s farmland for animal production. Unfortunately however, due to animals’ inefficiency in converting to feed to useful energy, animal agriculture produces only 18% of the world’s calories.
In addition to these semi-indirect issues associated with corn, the basic processes associated with its cultivation are far from environmentally neutral. Conventional monoculture farming (the method farmers use to produce the majority of the world’s corn) degrades soil and often creates harmful runoff that flows into streams and rivers. Pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers can all wreak havoc on aquatic organisms, and economically cripple anyone who makes their living in the fishing industries. This fact is clearly illustrated by the massive dead zone that has appeared in the Gulf of Mexico, and often spans over 6,000 square miles. Agricultural runoff, from both crops and animals, is the confirmed culprit of this ecological disaster.
So what can we do?
On a political level, agricultural subsidies for corn can be either eliminated, or redistributed. A 2014 article in the Washington Post stated that out of all federal agricultural subsidies, approximately 1% goes into supporting the “research, production, and marketing” of fruits and vegetables (non-grain vegetables). Although subsidies are necessary to help protect farmers from risks inherent to their profession, there is clearly an uneven distribution of subsidy allocation between various types of food. Leveling this playing field by transferring corn subsidies to other recipients, would be beneficial for both underfunded farmers and the environment.
Farmers themselves can transition to agriculture techniques that incorporate a wider variety to species than conventional monoculture. For example, they can use nitrogen fixing crops to improve soil fertility, instead of relying on synthetic fertilizers. This action, though more expensive in the short run, could significantly reduce the amount of fertilizer flowing into rivers, and eventually the ocean. In the long run, this action would likely benefit the farmers themselves, as it is healthier for the soil than conventional nutrition delivery strategies. Additionally, they can use better irrigation and fertilizer application technologies to cut down on excessive use of water and foreign chemicals.
As consumers, one of the best measures we can take is to buy organic corn. While organic agriculture is not quite as environmentally friendly as some make it out to be, it is miles ahead of conventional farming. In addition to buying organic (and if possible local) we can spread the word about the corn system’s flaws, and potential solutions.
Notes and further reading:
- A convincing case against ethanol production: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2014/04/20/its-final-corn-ethanol-is-of-no-use/#59139c0467d3
- Another hotly debated issue surrounding corn production is whether the consumption of genetically engineered varieties of the plant is detrimental to human health. The following study provides evidence that points to a possible link between GM corn and negative health outcomes: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20011136
- Information on the nutritional value of corn: https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/foods/corn#nutrients
- More information on threats that the conventional corn system poses to the environment, and the ways in which farmers can make corn production more environmentally friendly: https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2014/06/11/corn-environmental-risks
