King Corn
My wife and I rented King Corn last week, a well-done, 90-minute documentary about two recent college grads who decide to learn about the corn industry in the U.S. by growing an acre of it.
I was very impressed by the documentary. The filmmakers didn’t employ “in your face” factoids to drive home their point, nor did they make the people they interviewed come across as fools a la Michael Moore.
Rather, they told the story like it is, respectfully interviewing all of the players and allowing the audience to come to their own conclusions.
My conclusions were that high fructose corn syrup, corn oil, and corn-based malodextrin do not need to be a part of my diet, and that corn should be grown as food for people rather than feed for cattle or fuel for my car.
I found the most though-provoking part of the movie to be an interview with then 97 year-old Earl Butts (he passed away in February), the former Secretary of Agriculture who implemented the farm policies that we still have in place today. He defends his decisions to subsidize the corn industry, pointing out that the result has been cheaper food for the American public, allowing us to spend more money on other goods and services.
The movie does not point out that those government subsidies do not extend to organic farmers, which is one reason that organic food is more costly.
According to USDA statistics, Americans spend about 10% of their budget on food, about half as much as we did in the 1950’s. By comparison, Canada spends 14%, Europe 15%, Mexico 26%, and Pakistan 70%. Does this mean that food in the rest of the world is of better quality, more expensive, of greater importance in the family budget, or some combination thereof?
Conversely, do the benefits of having more money in our American wallets and purses make up for the consequences of a generation that has been raised on cheap, subsidized, genetically modified, chemically-sprayed and fertilized, industrially processed food? This is the first generation that will not live as long as their parents. If this fact is indeed linked to our diet, then I ask, what have we spent our money on that has been worth taking a couple of years off of our lifespan?
Comments
Did you rent in Chico? I would like to watch it...
your fellow Chicoan
Posted by: lisa | May 12, 2008 04:39 PM
Greetings from snowy Colorado. Great post! I haven't seen the movie but that will soon change.
Any thoughts on why organic farmers don't enjoy the same sort of subsidy?
patrick
Posted by: Patrick Caldwell | May 13, 2008 08:54 AM
Lisa,
I was able to rent King Corn from the Blockbuster Video on East Avenue.
Patrick,
From what I have read, organic farmers are subsidized, but not to the same extent as industrial ag. Also, the methods used by organic farmers are more time and labor intensive. This, combined with the fact that the smaller size of organic farms do not allow for the same economies of scale as the much larger conventional operations, likely means that the subsidies the organic farmers do receive do go as far.
Posted by: jeremy miller | May 13, 2008 11:03 AM
This comment comes courtesy of Matt Martin, who owns Pyramid Farm, and organic farm just outside of Chico:
Jeremy, There was a subsidy for organic farmers in California for four years. It was from a grant from the feds. It was a organic certification cost share program, for 75% of your cert costs, up to $500/year for the cost of being certified. It ran for four years.(5 maybe) I actually received it. It was administered by the California Organic program. But now the feds have moved on to another group of states. I do think that Organic commodity farmers can receive regular farm subsidies, but of course that goes very little to meeting production costs for Organic, and then the whole "true cost of production". Our food is cheap, and yes it has been on the backs of the Farmers producing our food. The nature of our food system has been to remove the consumer as far away from the producer as possible, let food processors and middle men make money as farmers continue to make less money growing larger acreages. Get big or get out, was the mantra for years. Even now with the rising costs of real food, commodity's,etc. the farmer is not getting rich. Cost's of production are rising, and in some aspect's faster than the prices received for the farmer. Got to go I could talk with you for hours on this subject.
Matthew
Posted by: jeremy miller | May 14, 2008 12:31 PM