The two main guys in this film are friends, Ian and Curtis, who set out to Iowa to discover all they could about corn in America.
They began by planting their own acre of corn. Before they could start planting though, they had to inform the government, who in turn paid them. For one acre of corn they would make about $28 a month. One of the farmers they talked to made a point of saying that if you are a corn farmer then you have to have a lot of farms, or a very large one, or else you kind of get "squeezed out" of the business all together because there are so many other farmers.These corn fields are basically taking over most other kinds of farms.
Another line that caught my attention as I was watching the friends plant their acre and spray it with anhydrous ammonia, is that because of the ammonia apparently farmers can grow about 4 times more corn than before. It is concerning to me that we are spraying chemicals on our food in order to make more of it. This ties back into the whole "shorter life span than our parents" thing. I highly doubt that adding chemicals to our bodies will help us live longer lives. If our grandparents did not need it to grow their food, then why do we?
Even more chemicals are sprayed on the genetically modified corn (modified to be immune to the chemicals) in order to kill weeds.
Today Iowa is proud to claim that they produce the most corn, which happens to be enough to feed the whole country by itself. Most of this corn is not immediately edible though. Corn has to be processed before anyone can eat it, which means that farmers cannot feed themselves anymore.
A large percentage of corn is turned into either sweeteners or is fed to animals who will one day be sold as food. I remember watching Food Inc. my junior year of high school and learning about these animals being fed corn. The problem with that is that many of these animals are built to eat grass and not the large amount of corn they are fed each year. Feeding the animals corn is intended to make them fatter faster, but it just is not natural.
In fact, very little about our food system seems to be anymore.
I was also shocked to here that our generation might not live as long as the previous. Wouldn't it be horrible if we are the generation to buck the trend of diet and health progress?
ReplyDeleteFood in our country is so messed up. If how it is made (produced), is a way we can't eat, it should be changed to a healthy "normal" way of food consumption.
ReplyDeleteSomehow it seems like corn production would be much better if there were less. I think that government subsidies are a significant part of the problem. How is taxpayer money being put to use? Who benefits?
ReplyDeleteThis sounds like a really interesting documentary. And that quote at the beginning. Wow thats just crazy. Just thinking about that makes me question what we are really doing to our bodies. Clearly not good things
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