Corn – America’s Bane?

I think it is important to take notice when the price of seed corn reaches a price that farmers cannot afford to purchase it to plant. What causes the price of corn higher on the front end (for planting) than more than what it yields on the back end (harvesting)?

Ethanol. This craze for maze to make ethanol has turned the food production system onto a mess. Arguments on both sides of the debate whether or not corn is a viable resource for the production of ethanol. So tout it uses more energy to produce than it yields. Couple that with the amount of acreage now being devoted to it; is placing great strain on the rest of the agriculture grown for food. Land once used to plant wheat, barley soybeans and oats are being used exclusively for corn.

This trend is driving food pricing askew, flour prices are soaring and creating a greater food shortage for the low income consumers.

Corn is everywhere in our lives. We used it as a fuel additive, sweeteners, fillers, feed for livestock and as an additive to treat our roads as a de-icer.

As a sweetener it is contributing to our national surge in the amount of adults with type 2 diabetes. Where natural cane sugars were once used, corn as a sweetener is now preferred because it is cheaper and more profitable. The food industry has been marketing corn and corn byproducts to us for decades.

Processed foods contain corn as a filler to stretch the core ingredients allowing for greater profitability. We feed our lives stock corn instead of the grasses they were created to eat. This creates the need for supplements and antibiotics because corn isn’t sustaining enough by itself.

Think about it, when you eat corn with a meal, does it digest in your system or does your body pass it along with the other wastes your body discharges? An ultra sweet cob of corn, steamed to the proper temperature dipped in fresh butter with a sprinkle of salt is delicious but it does the body little good. As a fiber it contributes little, other than a little gastric distress in some.

Corn is a multi billion dollar industry, it reaches all walks of life around the globe yet it provides little of the needed nutrition we require. Why do you think corn isn’t found as a wild crop? There are other grains far better than corn for consumption by animals and humans.