Few things are as enjoyable as the first fresh ear of corn in the early summer. Boiled or grilled, the golden kernels speak of warm sunshine, family picnics and relaxed informality. Known scientifically as Zea Mays, and more traditionally as Maize, corn is a thoroughly American vegetable that has gained a global following. And it’s not just fuel for the body, it’s also fuel for the automobile: ethanol produced from corn forms a foundation of U.S. planning for a post-oil world.
Packed full of nutrients, and offering an oil-free future for car lovers everywhere, what’s not to love about this all-American beauty?
Well, quite a lot actually. Today’s corn agribusiness is a manufacturing behemoth fully participatory in the global economy, with more in common with BP, ExxonMobile and Shell than with the rural smallholders of American history.
Corn is hands-down America’s number one field crop, leading all other crops in both value and volume. Around 80 million acres of land are planted to corn in the U.S., and 2007 saw the largest corn crop in history at over 13.1 billion bushels, 10.6 percent above the previous record of 11.8 billion bushels set in 2004. The National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) proudly points to the fact that the US accounts for nearly 40 percent of global corn production.
But surely growing corn is an effective way to combat global hunger?
Unfortunately not. Most of the U.S. corn crop is used as feed for livestock. Indeed, corn accounts for more than 90 percent of the total value and production of feed grains. Few forms of agriculture are as calorically inefficient as growing crops to feed animals: the corn-fed animals ultimately provide a mere fraction – between one-third and one-tenth – of the food value that has been fed to them.
Unfortunately developing nations are following the factory farming practices of the U.S., and use corn overwhelmingly as livestock feed. China and India, newly prosperous as a result of globalization, have adopted western methods of factory farming animals to provide meat for their increasingly prosperous middle class. As a coherent plan for fighting global hunger, using corn as feed for raising animals is nothing short of lunacy.
What about processing corn into ethanol for use as a clean alternative to fossil fuels?
The corn lobby loves this particular golden kernel: corn is not only an environment-friendly fuel it’s also patriotic, reducing U.S. dependence on foreign oil. What a relief for Americans facing sharply increasing oil costs: thanks to corn we won’t have to contemplate a future without cars, don’t need to expand public transportation or rethink our love of the suburbs and distant shopping centers. Thanks to corn we can expect a future not so dissimilar to today. We grow it, we drive it. A perfect win-win situation.
These are golden times for the corn industry. President Bush has called for the production of 35 billion gallons of ethanol by 2017, which would equal about 15 percent of the U.S. liquid transportation fuels. Over the next five years, $5.7 billion in federal tax credits will support the ethanol market. The NCGA states that it “continues its tireless work building demand for ethanol to ensure that the tremendous growth we’ve experienced in the industry will be dwarfed by what’s to come.” Its top priority remains an energy policy that establishes a renewable fuels standard which “could increase ethanol production by 5 billion gallons per year in the next decade.”
But there are problems with this happy vision. First, of course, is growing concern over the use of hundreds of millions of pounds of pesticides, herbicides, chemical fertilizers and other additives used to grow corn. The National Academies has warned that if projected increases in the use of corn for ethanol production occur, the harm to water quality could be considerable, and water supply problems at the regional and local levels could increase.
Second, using corn to produce ethanol is not particularly energy efficient. The Cato Institute has noted that it takes the equivalent of seven barrels of oil to produce eight barrels of corn-derived ethanol. In contrast, sugar-cane ethanol of the type produced in Brazil is almost eight times more fossil fuel efficient to produce than the U.S. corn-based product. Yet the U.S. government – under massive pressure from the powerful corn lobby – continues to focus on encouraging domestically produced corn-ethanol while imposing high tariffs on imported alternatives.
Third, switching corn production to ethanol manufacture, and diverting food crop production globally to ethanol-producing corn, threatens to further undermine and destabilize global food production. The environmental and political costs of oil-reliance have been evident for decades. The true costs of switching to ethanol-driven transportation are only just being contemplated.
Perhaps, after all, corn is not so good for us. The agribusiness of corn manufacture poisons our water, diverts food production, and stimulates the inefficient use of food crops as livestock feed. Neither is corn a panacea for our failed transportation policies, unless we are willing to stomach a future where people starve so that we can drive. It’s time for the U.S. government to rethink its policy of automatically bowing to the corn lobby’s false promises of a golden corn-based future.
The author of this piece, John Hall is an Associate Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Global Trade & Development, Chapman University School of Law, Orange, Calif.
Packed full of nutrients, and offering an oil-free future for car lovers everywhere, what’s not to love about this all-American beauty?
Well, quite a lot actually. Today’s corn agribusiness is a manufacturing behemoth fully participatory in the global economy, with more in common with BP, ExxonMobile and Shell than with the rural smallholders of American history.
Corn is hands-down America’s number one field crop, leading all other crops in both value and volume. Around 80 million acres of land are planted to corn in the U.S., and 2007 saw the largest corn crop in history at over 13.1 billion bushels, 10.6 percent above the previous record of 11.8 billion bushels set in 2004. The National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) proudly points to the fact that the US accounts for nearly 40 percent of global corn production.
But surely growing corn is an effective way to combat global hunger?
Unfortunately not. Most of the U.S. corn crop is used as feed for livestock. Indeed, corn accounts for more than 90 percent of the total value and production of feed grains. Few forms of agriculture are as calorically inefficient as growing crops to feed animals: the corn-fed animals ultimately provide a mere fraction – between one-third and one-tenth – of the food value that has been fed to them.
Unfortunately developing nations are following the factory farming practices of the U.S., and use corn overwhelmingly as livestock feed. China and India, newly prosperous as a result of globalization, have adopted western methods of factory farming animals to provide meat for their increasingly prosperous middle class. As a coherent plan for fighting global hunger, using corn as feed for raising animals is nothing short of lunacy.
What about processing corn into ethanol for use as a clean alternative to fossil fuels?
The corn lobby loves this particular golden kernel: corn is not only an environment-friendly fuel it’s also patriotic, reducing U.S. dependence on foreign oil. What a relief for Americans facing sharply increasing oil costs: thanks to corn we won’t have to contemplate a future without cars, don’t need to expand public transportation or rethink our love of the suburbs and distant shopping centers. Thanks to corn we can expect a future not so dissimilar to today. We grow it, we drive it. A perfect win-win situation.
These are golden times for the corn industry. President Bush has called for the production of 35 billion gallons of ethanol by 2017, which would equal about 15 percent of the U.S. liquid transportation fuels. Over the next five years, $5.7 billion in federal tax credits will support the ethanol market. The NCGA states that it “continues its tireless work building demand for ethanol to ensure that the tremendous growth we’ve experienced in the industry will be dwarfed by what’s to come.” Its top priority remains an energy policy that establishes a renewable fuels standard which “could increase ethanol production by 5 billion gallons per year in the next decade.”
But there are problems with this happy vision. First, of course, is growing concern over the use of hundreds of millions of pounds of pesticides, herbicides, chemical fertilizers and other additives used to grow corn. The National Academies has warned that if projected increases in the use of corn for ethanol production occur, the harm to water quality could be considerable, and water supply problems at the regional and local levels could increase.
Second, using corn to produce ethanol is not particularly energy efficient. The Cato Institute has noted that it takes the equivalent of seven barrels of oil to produce eight barrels of corn-derived ethanol. In contrast, sugar-cane ethanol of the type produced in Brazil is almost eight times more fossil fuel efficient to produce than the U.S. corn-based product. Yet the U.S. government – under massive pressure from the powerful corn lobby – continues to focus on encouraging domestically produced corn-ethanol while imposing high tariffs on imported alternatives.
Third, switching corn production to ethanol manufacture, and diverting food crop production globally to ethanol-producing corn, threatens to further undermine and destabilize global food production. The environmental and political costs of oil-reliance have been evident for decades. The true costs of switching to ethanol-driven transportation are only just being contemplated.
Perhaps, after all, corn is not so good for us. The agribusiness of corn manufacture poisons our water, diverts food production, and stimulates the inefficient use of food crops as livestock feed. Neither is corn a panacea for our failed transportation policies, unless we are willing to stomach a future where people starve so that we can drive. It’s time for the U.S. government to rethink its policy of automatically bowing to the corn lobby’s false promises of a golden corn-based future.
The author of this piece, John Hall is an Associate Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Global Trade & Development, Chapman University School of Law, Orange, Calif.
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