Documentary Deftly Fields New Scrutiny Of Corn

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http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071104/BUSINESS/711040324/-1/LOCAL17

November 4, 2007

Documentary deftly fields new scrutiny of corn

By Maureen Groppe
Star Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- From his Indiana nursing home, former Agriculture Secretary Earl Butz lets the makers of the documentary "King Corn" in on "America's best-kept secret."

CORN'S RISE: BY THE NUMBERS

66.9 million - Number of acres planted in corn in the U.S. in 1970.
93.6 million - Number of acres planted in 2007.
40 percent - Percent change 1970-2007.
2 million - Number of acres planted in vegetables in the U.S. in 2006.
0.6 - Average, in pounds, of high-fructose corn syrup consumed by an American in 1970.
73.5 - Average, in pounds, consumed in 2000.

Sources: "King Corn," Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Department of Agriculture

ABOUT THE FILM

"King Corn" -- Two recent college graduates try to understand the nation's food system and obesity epidemic by growing an acre of corn, the nation's most produced crop. Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis made this documentary with director Aaron Woolf. It's a co-production of Mosaic Films and the Independent Television Service, with funding provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Length: 90 minutes.

Americans spend only 16 percent to 17 percent of their take-home pay on food, Butz tells the camera.
"That's marvelous," says Butz, who transformed agricultural policy in the 1970s. "It's the basis of our affluence now."

But the filmmakers aren't so sure. Recent college graduates Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis, who grew an acre of corn to follow it through the food chain, point out that their generation will have a shorter lifespan than their parents because of what they eat -- much of it corn-fed meat, corn-based processed foods or those sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup.

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More than one-third is turned into ethanol or exported. A portion becomes high-fructose corn syrup, the nation's most used sweetener. And about half is fed to animals, including cows whose stomachs are designed to eat grass. "If the American people wanted strictly grass-fed beef, we would produce grass-fed beef for them," says feedlot owner Bob Bledsoe in the movie. "But it's definitely more expensive, and one of the tenets in America is America wants and demands cheap food."

To find out what they themselves have been eating, Cheney and Ellis get their hair -- which works as a "tape recorder" of their diets -- analyzed at an isotope geochemistry lab. The scientist tells them the carbon in their bodies comes from corn.

The filmmakers try to explain this in a letter to Iowa farmer Chuck Pyatt when asking if he will lease them one of his acres. " 'People are basically made out of corn," ' Pyatt reads from the letter Cheney and Ellis sent him, adding: "What the heck?" Although Pyatt thinks the request is a joke, he rents them an acre, which they find can be profitable only if they sign up for federal subsidies. (They grew their crop in 2004, before the ethanol boom sent corn prices skyward.) Figuring out the subsidy system was harder than planting their 31,000 seeds, which took 18 minutes.

MORE

[Eagle_Eye]

1. Did the film mention genetically modified food?

Monsanto is going to change life as we know it with their genetically modified corn seeds.

This change has a good chance of ruining agriculture as we know it.

Should Monsanto's experiments in high-yield, disease resistance seeds produce a fast growing, but useless plant, we could be in for big trouble.

Kudzu Korn - just what the world needs.

[1932]

2. What it really argues is that the government subsidizes corn so that soft drink companies can have

huge profit margins.

Taxpayers guaranty profits for coke, pepsi, and other huge multinational companies.

So, even if you think you're making a statement about what you think about the soft drink industry by not buying their products, when you pay your AMT, a chunk of your paycheck is going to Pepsi anyway.