Corn!

            I love this book. I think Pollen uses the perfect amount of rhetoric, humor, and just plain fact combined to illustrate our food system, something we don’t think to question, in an unbiased tone which does not fail to paint the picture of the frightening reality.

            Part One offers a very telling look at industrial agriculture, and to me, makes our food system (or corn system) seem ridiculous. It is helpful to look at corn through the lens of commodification and how corn functions in the economic market. Pollen states that ultimately we end up finding uses for corn because the ”supply of corn vastly exceeds the demand”, and our roll is to put it all to use.

            This mass of corn land in itself presents irony: corn overwhelms the production of any other food in the areas where is produced on the largest of scales, introducing the term “food desert” in the context of Iowa, who, in practice, produces more “food” per acre than so many other places. This concept is incredibly paradoxical because the “food” coming from Iowa is not sustainable, and is shipped away to be processed, engineered, or fed to animals.

            To further the contradiction of corn, corn sells for cheaper than is costs to produce? As Naylor analyzes, agriculture does not work well in a free market: there will never be sudden increases in demands for food when prices are low. This causes farmers to make additional budget cuts in order to increase their overall revenue, and the government to subsidize the product in order to further encourage production. Furthermore, to drive this picture of our enormous corn production industry home, Pollen was unable to trace the corn product to our plates. To me, the image represents the function of corn, rather than the magic of food through the collaboration and interaction it provokes between producer and consumer.

            To look at meat, a Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation says it all. Being introduced to an animal and the “adaptation” it experiences to be raised on feed. Corn has become the definition of cheap: there is a ton of it, it doesn’t cost much, and it is used for efficiency, “offer[ing] the cheapest calories” (68). Raising beef also presents the contradiction of immediate efficiency versus long-term sustainability. Yes the grain feed cycles provide the most efficient lifespan for timely and consumer-satisfying meat production, but grass-fed meat is much more sustainable and energy efficient.

            Not to mention that all of this translates into humans weather through meat of through processed foods, so much of what we eat is filled with corn. Based on the examples Pollen gave, I can only imagine how much corn someone on an
“American” diet is eating, someone like Bich! It is crazy to think about our appetites as something that has been affected so much by the food industry, providing many more opportunities to contribute to the consumer driven industry. To trace it all to a McDonalds meal was very climactic, smething that represents the larger implications of all of the pieces of the meal along the way.

            Reading the first section through the lens of my personal biases caused many reactions such as these. But in reality, I understand the economic logic and sense that this system makes from a money-making standpoint. These farmers are just trying to build a business. But in my eyes, I see it at the expense of so many other resources. “Industrial logic” really does make sense, it’s just not something I believe in.