Demi
Sat, Dec-01-07, 11:27
The Times
London, UK
1 December, 2007
How the kings of corn became villains who got America hooked on 'liquid Satan'
They are America’s newest villains: peddlers of “liquid Satan”, stealers of taxpayers’ money, environmental vandals and conspirators in a great “green fuel” hoax.
Not oil producers, but those former heroes of the Midwest prairie, the corn farmers of Iowa, now buffeted by a media storm of opprobrium that is reserved, usually, for the gun or fast-food industries.
King Corn a documentary hailed as the new Super Size Me, or An Incovenient Truth, is the latest high-profile hit against corn growers, accusing them of sins from environmental destruction to fuelling the obesity crisis in America.
Highest up the anti-corn charge sheet is high-fructose corn syrup or “liquid Satan” to its detractors: a sugar substitute that is found in everything from soft drinks to frozen pizzas. Corn-derived cattle feed puts weight on farm animals quickly, allowing the mass production of the kind of cheap beef without which the $1 (48p) hamburger would not be possible.
A chorus of detractors argue that government subsidies are encouraging the corn industry to produce more corn than is good for America, with the surplus being dumped on the market in the forms of the reviled corn syrup and cattle feed, resulting in catastrophic obesity rates.
King Corn follows Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis, two Yale graduates, as they travel from Boston to Iowa on a mission to grow an acre of corn. Illustrating mass-farming techniques of modern America, they plant their crop in 18 minutes, dose it with ammonia and produce a harvest big enough to make 6,726 boxes of corn flakes.
All this attention on the food chain has done what many thought would be impossible: it has turned corn into a “sexy” topic before the crucial Democratic presidential caucus in Iowa, the centre of the corn industry, in January. The caucus also coincides with the debate in Congress about the 2007 Farm Bill that will establish corn subsidies for years to come.
“When I went to get the funding for this movie, the investors all thought I said ‘porn’ and they immediately whipped out their chequebooks,” Aaron Woolf, 43, who directed King Corn, joked. “When I explained that what I actually said was ‘corn’, they put them away again.”
That all changed when Michael Pollan’s food detective book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, shot to the top of the bestseller list of The New York Times with its exposé of the evils of corn-based sweeteners and additives. A slew of negative websites followed, attacking the corn industry for crimes against human health and the environment as the backlash grew over the green credentials of ethanol, the corn-derived, so-called wonderfuel.
To the corn farmers of Iowa it has all come as a bit of a shock. “We spend more time defending our industry than we do promoting it. Every day in the media we’re being chastised,” Tim Recker, president of the Iowa Corn Growers Association and owner of a 1,500-acre (607ha) family farm, said.
Mr Recker is irritated particularly by the accusation that his product is too heavily subsidised and therefore too cheap. He said that the ethanol boom pushed the price of a bushel of corn from $2.20 to $3.77 this year – and that the government subsidies only if the price falls below $1.90.
Mr Recker said that he blames America’s obesity problem not on his product but on portion sizes and lack of exercise.
“Do we have [obesity] because of corn syrup, or is it because of Game Boy and sitting on the couch for 18 hours a day?” he asked. “When I was a kid, we were working in the field all day. We could have eaten all the high-fructose corn syrup we wanted.”
A growing problem
— Americans consume an average of 73.5lb of high-fructose corn syrup a year, up from 0.6lb in 1970
— 66 per cent of Americans are now classified as overweight or obese, compared with 47.7 per cent in 1971
— US taxpayers spent $9.4 billion (£4.5 billion) on subsidies of corn production in 2005
— Iowa’s genetically enhanced bushels-per-acre yield in 2007 was 180, compared with 86 in 1970
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article2980693.ece
London, UK
1 December, 2007
How the kings of corn became villains who got America hooked on 'liquid Satan'
They are America’s newest villains: peddlers of “liquid Satan”, stealers of taxpayers’ money, environmental vandals and conspirators in a great “green fuel” hoax.
Not oil producers, but those former heroes of the Midwest prairie, the corn farmers of Iowa, now buffeted by a media storm of opprobrium that is reserved, usually, for the gun or fast-food industries.
King Corn a documentary hailed as the new Super Size Me, or An Incovenient Truth, is the latest high-profile hit against corn growers, accusing them of sins from environmental destruction to fuelling the obesity crisis in America.
Highest up the anti-corn charge sheet is high-fructose corn syrup or “liquid Satan” to its detractors: a sugar substitute that is found in everything from soft drinks to frozen pizzas. Corn-derived cattle feed puts weight on farm animals quickly, allowing the mass production of the kind of cheap beef without which the $1 (48p) hamburger would not be possible.
A chorus of detractors argue that government subsidies are encouraging the corn industry to produce more corn than is good for America, with the surplus being dumped on the market in the forms of the reviled corn syrup and cattle feed, resulting in catastrophic obesity rates.
King Corn follows Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis, two Yale graduates, as they travel from Boston to Iowa on a mission to grow an acre of corn. Illustrating mass-farming techniques of modern America, they plant their crop in 18 minutes, dose it with ammonia and produce a harvest big enough to make 6,726 boxes of corn flakes.
All this attention on the food chain has done what many thought would be impossible: it has turned corn into a “sexy” topic before the crucial Democratic presidential caucus in Iowa, the centre of the corn industry, in January. The caucus also coincides with the debate in Congress about the 2007 Farm Bill that will establish corn subsidies for years to come.
“When I went to get the funding for this movie, the investors all thought I said ‘porn’ and they immediately whipped out their chequebooks,” Aaron Woolf, 43, who directed King Corn, joked. “When I explained that what I actually said was ‘corn’, they put them away again.”
That all changed when Michael Pollan’s food detective book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, shot to the top of the bestseller list of The New York Times with its exposé of the evils of corn-based sweeteners and additives. A slew of negative websites followed, attacking the corn industry for crimes against human health and the environment as the backlash grew over the green credentials of ethanol, the corn-derived, so-called wonderfuel.
To the corn farmers of Iowa it has all come as a bit of a shock. “We spend more time defending our industry than we do promoting it. Every day in the media we’re being chastised,” Tim Recker, president of the Iowa Corn Growers Association and owner of a 1,500-acre (607ha) family farm, said.
Mr Recker is irritated particularly by the accusation that his product is too heavily subsidised and therefore too cheap. He said that the ethanol boom pushed the price of a bushel of corn from $2.20 to $3.77 this year – and that the government subsidies only if the price falls below $1.90.
Mr Recker said that he blames America’s obesity problem not on his product but on portion sizes and lack of exercise.
“Do we have [obesity] because of corn syrup, or is it because of Game Boy and sitting on the couch for 18 hours a day?” he asked. “When I was a kid, we were working in the field all day. We could have eaten all the high-fructose corn syrup we wanted.”
A growing problem
— Americans consume an average of 73.5lb of high-fructose corn syrup a year, up from 0.6lb in 1970
— 66 per cent of Americans are now classified as overweight or obese, compared with 47.7 per cent in 1971
— US taxpayers spent $9.4 billion (£4.5 billion) on subsidies of corn production in 2005
— Iowa’s genetically enhanced bushels-per-acre yield in 2007 was 180, compared with 86 in 1970
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article2980693.ece