Why the US is so (economically) hooke... - Low-Carb High-Fat...
Why the US is so (economically) hooked on corn... a horror story
I would say they're physiologically hooked on corn too.
Everyone should know this story. Absolutely incredible that US consumers are eating 99% of that corn as processed food: I knew it was a lot, but I didn't realise it was that much. I was under the impression most corn was used for animal feed.
It sounds like conspiracy-theory-wingnut stuff, but unfortunately this is real life. Any US farmer can, I think, confirm the hard reality, and they suffer as much as anyone else does. One big problem in the US is that so few people are farmers (a deliberate policy outcome), so as a demographic they lack a political voice.
Incidentally, it isn't true that corn is outstandingly productive. 12 tonnes per hectare (the US average) is pretty ho-hum considering how much fertilizer is dumped onto the land to achieve that. The theoretical peak biomass yield is around 100 tonnes per hectare, which is readily achievable with C4 grasses and large perennials (trees and shrubs), and they can do that with minimal synthetic inputs. In fact corn actually achieves a high total yield - it's a C4 plant - but most of its output is green stuff, which is ignored as "waste".
The problem, of course, is that humans can't eat trees. But other things can - bacteria, fungi, ruminants and birds. We can either eat them, or we can eat secondary and tertiary products that follow naturally from their existence. It's just that humanity - by which I mean economists and politicians, who make all the important decisions - has a very blinkered view on what's "productive".
We do not always waste the green leafy bits of the maize plant… some farmers feed the “whole crop” to cows. Google “Whole crop maize”.
Perhaps we should grow wood, feed it to termites… and eat termites?
>> some farmers feed the “whole crop” to cows.
True, but cows should not be eating corn 
The bit that made me laugh was the breathless announcement that "an acre of corn is worth $1000". That's a pathetically small income from an acre. There are market gardeners earning that amount from fifty square meters - salad veg and tomatoes are the big earners on this scale. I've generated $1000 of profit myself from less than a tenth of an acre - roselle (hibiscus sabdariffa) and papaya. Corn farming is such a lot of effort, for such a small payback, with such high risk, that I'm amazed anyone takes the bait.
>> Perhaps we should grow wood, feed it to termites… and eat termites?
I've "farmed" termites. Throw some logs down on land that you want to crop, or make a heap of tree trimmings, and they'll just arrive and turn it into compost for you. You don't need to eat the termites - when they've done their job, you can plant fertility-demanding annuals in the soil that they occupied and you'll get a good result. I imagine you could also run chickens through and they would eat the termites, while leaving a trail of, um, additional fertility behind them.
"Microlivestock" is actually an up-and-coming thing. People are seriously experimenting with different models for farming worms, bugs, and microorganisms on a large scale. Although there is a lot of talk about humans eating insect protein, I don't see any point when insectivores (eg., poultry) are far better adapted to do so.
If we have reduced the fish stocks to the point where there is an over-abundance of plankton... how can we "eat" plankton?
I would have thought that, where you can grow maize, with irrigation and farm-yard-manure, you could grow vegetables... and what would be the return or nuts, flaxseed or Mediterranean fruit?
In a word - the dollar!
The whole sorry business started with Nixon appointing Earl Butz to rev up food production. Throw in the massive subsidies, which will be there forever given the voting power and lobbying of the farming industry and you have the perfect storm.
Corn is the most egregios crop on the planet!
I've put this up before, but if you haven't seen it, well worth a watch:
youtube.com/watch?v=ywJOKF4...
Yes, thanks - I had seen that - and found it interesting.