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 Use
of Corn
The summer of 2008 saw the price of corn in United
States double. Many people attributed this rise in price to a relatively
new corn-based product - Ethanol. In order to dispute this claim, a
group of corn farmers who call themselves the "Corn Farmers Coalition"
have released a document entitled The Corn Fact Book . While the
document is specifically laid out to address the ethanol controversy,
the arguments presented are highly relevant to using corn to produce
other non-food products, and that is why a few of the major points are
summarized here.
Most of the Corn
Grown is Not For You To Eat
Only about 1 percent of the
crop is sweet corn that we buy frozen, canned, or on the cob at the
grocery store. The vast majority of the crop is instead commercial
"field corn" cused for other purposes. Half the US crop goes to feed
cattle, pigs, and poultry. Another quarter goes to ethanol, and 20
percent is exported. The rest goes to make food ingredients, chemicals,
fabrics, and plastics. Natureworks states on their website that they use
less than one-fifth of one percent of the total corn grown for grain
production in the United States - .11%.
The Supply of Corn
Despite the panic in 2008 when corn prices doubled, farmers provided
plenty of corn to go around and will continue to do so. Farmers produced
12 billion bushels, or $52 billion worth of corn, which also makes it by
far America's most valuable crop. Even after supplying food-makers,
ranchers, ethanol producers and grain exporters, America will again be
able to save 10 percent of this year's harvest for the future.
Corn Prices vs Oil
Prices
Corn prices haven't risen much for 60 years. The $1.24
a bushel of corn cost in 1949 had risen only by a factor of three to hit
just $4.20 by 2007 while the price of oil rose 26 times. Inexpensive
corn made it attractive to feed to animals an its abundance meant there
was enough to use for making non-traditional products, from
biodegradable packing peanuts to fabrics. The cost of a barrel of oil,
according to the global consulting firm LECG, has two to three times
more impact on retail food prices than grain prices, especially in 2008
as oil prices jumped to record highs.
A Few Thoughts on Genetically Modified
Organisms (GMO)
GMO corn is approved by the USDA as well
as the EPA: "The USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service and
the EPA review any environmental impacts of such pest-resistant
biotechnology-derived crops prior to approval of field-testing and
commerical release," says the Agriculture Department.
From
Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace: "There's a misconception that
it would be better to go back to more primitive methods of agriculture
because chemicals are bad or genetics is bad. This is not true. We need
to use the science and technology we have developed in order to feed the
world's population, a growing population. And the more yield we get per
acre of land the less nature has to be destroyed to do that - it's
simple arithmetic. The more people there are, the more forest has to be
cleared to feed them, and the only way to offsest that is to have more
yield per acre."
From Natureworks: "The corn source is a typical
North American mix of GM and conventional field corn used for animal
feed, and that comes from local farmers around Blair, Neb., USA."
Farmers can increase production by using seeds genetically modified
to produce plants that can make their own pesticides, resist drought, or
even contain extra nutrients. Already, for example, genetically
engineered, insect resistant cotton, soybeans, adn corn mean farmers can
use less synthetic pesticides that may contaminate groundwater and soil.
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