The True Cost of American Corn SubsidiesAn Examination of USDA Grain Subsidies and their Ramifications on America

T. Max BulgerUEP 178: Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning

Professor Jon Witten

I. America's Corn DependencyThe average American consumes approximately 1500 pounds of corn a year, or over 4 pounds

a day. - United States Department of Agriculture.

Through the vast tracts of farmland that stretch across the United States, one crop

dominates almost a quarter of the fields - corn. The USA produces about nine billion bushels of

it every year, making it by the far the most common commodity grown domestically.1 Americans

consume corn constantly; in soda, in chips, in corn-fed meat, and in almost every food you can

find in a gas station or McDonald's. Despite using corn products in the vast majority of our food,

America still has plenty left over to export to the developing world.

It's no coincidence that one crop dominates so much of our agriculture and economy.

Farm subsidies from the federal government heavily favor field corn. The current Farm Bill, the

US Department of Agriculture's legislative blueprint, calls for up to $5 billion annually in corn

subsidies alone.2 These subsidies retard the corn market, encouraging overproduction and driving

prices down, leading to a "plague of cheap corn, impoverishing farmers, degrading the land,

polluting the water, and bleeding the federal treasury."3 For decades, USDA subsidies have made

the market price of corn far lower than the actual cost of production and provided over half of

corn famers' income.4

Domestically, very few parties benefit from the artificial market the government has

created by overriding basic economic principles that would otherwise regulate production. With

such an excess of corn, farmers are forced to generate increasingly large yields to turn a profit,

which only drives prices lower. They measure success in how much yield they can squeeze from

1 Wilson, Kelpie. "Corn: Used and Abused." Organic Consumers Association: truthout. 20 July 2005. Online at: <http://www.organicconsumers.org/corn/abused072705.cfm>.2 Pollan, Michael. The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. New York: Penguin Press, 2007, 54.3 Ibid.4 Ibid.

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each acre of farm, a "measurement that improves even as they go broke."5 Large, industrial farms

earn more subsidy dollars, but they also cause far more pollution than their smaller, more diverse

predecessors. Cheap corn leads to cheap food for consumers- cheapened by the replacement of

real ingredients with corn substitutes that lack nutritional value, like high fructose corn syrup

(which is produced to the tune of 17.5 billion pounds annually in the US).6 On top of

environmental, economic and health repercussions domestically, American agribusinesses export

their corn to the third world and sell it for less than the cost of production, making it impossible

for local farmers, who don't have the luxury of inflated subsidies, to compete. Subsidies to just

25,000 farmers in America exceed all of the aid our nation offers to the 800 million people in

sub-Saharan Africa.7

These massive subsidies have birthed a sea of equally large problems. To fully

understand how our nation's agricultural policy has led us into a hole so deep and tangled, we

have to turn the clock back to the beginning of the last century.

II. Earl Butz and the Shaping of Modern American Agricultural Policy"What had long been the dream of agribusiness (cheaper raw materials) and the political

establishment (fewer restive farmers) now became official government policy." -Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma

The hardships of farming are often associated with scarcity: long, cold winters and

adverse growing conditions that lead to famine and poverty. Being a vendor with no product to

sell is not profitable. However, the inverse situation is just as troublesome to the American

farmer. Years where ideal growing conditions facilitate an unusually large yield lead create an

5 Pollan, 54-5.6 Pollan, 103.7 Brown, Lester R. Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2008, 147.

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overabundance of crops and accordingly low prices. An oversaturated market leaves farmers just

as impoverished as an under saturated one.

In the 1930s, the Depression affected America's agricultural professionals as harshly as

the rest of the workforce. When President Roosevelt sought to steady the economy and bring

America back towards the luxury it emanated in earlier decades, he believed the farms to be the

backbone that could support a financial turnaround. The New Deal contained extensive

agricultural legislation that set up federal farm policy for decades to come.

FDR's Depression policy sought to protect weak markets, and provided a safety net that

encouraged less farming, offering an alternative to dumping crops on already weak markets. The

President's goal was to avoid the total collapse of commodity prices and keep farmers in business

through the period of low demand, anticipating an upswing in consumption when the economy

strengthened. The corn subsidy program allowed farmers to take out a loan from the government

when prices were low, using crop as collateral. They could then afford to store grain until prices

climbed. At that point, profits from corn sales were used to repay the loan, or, if prices stayed

low, the farmers could keep the money and give the government their crop, which was stored in

something called the "Ever-Normal Granary."8

This plan prevented the oversaturation of faltering markets, which would have led to their

failure. It helped float farmers through a period when Americans were consuming very little corn

(or anything, for that matter) and prevented the bankruptcy of thousands of agricultural workers.

It also had a second advantage that became obvious after the end of World War II and into the

next decades.

When arms production stopped at the close of the second world war, the American

government found itself with an excess of a key ingredient in explosives, ammonium nitrate. It

8 Pollan, 49.

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just so happens that ammonium nitrate is also a key ingredient in chemical fertilizer, providing

nitrogen to plants. Before the widespread adoption of this chemical stimulant, farmers couldn't

plant corn more than twice every five years on any particular plot of land; otherwise the soil

would grow "corn sick" and nitrogen deficient.9 Agronomists from the USDA helped proliferate

this new compound, and it caused the annual yield of corn in the US, and around the world, to

exponentially balloon. Internationally, annual grain harvests have tripled since 1950, reaching 2

billion tons in 2007. Between 1950 and 1973, farmers around the world expanded the grain

harvest, through corn and other basic commodities, by as much as during the 11,000 years

before.10

The New Deal farm subsidies help farmers survive this rapid and revolutionary increase

in output capabilities. While demand did increase tremendously, as President Roosevelt

predicted, even more rapid growth in production ability led to fluctuating and often low prices,

leading corn farmers to lean heavily on government loans in tough times. However, the policy

was effective, and lasted essentially unrevised until the 1972 presidential election.

Earl Butz was President Richard Nixon's second Secretary of Agriculture, and also the

principle architect of the modern structure of USDA farm subsidies. When Nixon began seeking

re-election for his second term, he tapped Butz to help secure the farm vote. It just so happened,

as the Secretary was considering political strategies in the fall of 1972, a massive commodity

shortage hit Russia after a particularly poor growing season. Ever the businessman, with a

doctorate in agricultural economics from Purdue University and a position on the board of food

manufacturer Ralston Purina, Butz seized the opportunity.11 Russia bought 30 million tons of

9 Pollan, 42.10 Brown, 35-6.11 Goldstein, Richard. "Earl L. Butz, Secretary Felled by Racial Remark, Is Dead at 98." New York Times. 4 February 2008. NY Times Online: <http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/04/washington/04butz.html>.

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crops from the United States that fall, sending domestic corn prices through the roof as local

supplies were suddenly far scarcer than in previous years.12 Farmers could not have been more

pleased, as their profits increased dramatically. Happy farmers led to a happy incumbent

president, as Richard Nixon was re-elected and took office for a second term. Butz was

victorious.

However, the victory wasn't lasting. By 1973 the high cost of corn had hit the consumers,

and it hit hard. Food prices reached an all-time high. Farmers began slaughtering chicks to avoid

the cost of feed. Citizens took to protesting outside grocery stores, and, that summer, the U.S.

News and World Report published a widely circulated article entitled "Why a Food Scare in a

Land of Plenty?" Nixon knew he had a consumer crisis at hand, and he looked to Earl Butz for

the solution. That was the last time food prices have been high enough to become a hotbed

political issue- Butz's actions, in accordance with Nixon's wishes, made sure food policy would

never reach the center of the political arena again.13

Starting with the 1973 Farm Bill, the USDA set about dismantling New Deal agricultural

policy. The initial structural change Butz made in federal subsidies passed with little fanfare, but

it proved to be the lynchpin upon which industries of cheap corn would develop. FDR's

legislation had encouraged farmers to grow conservatively: if the market was weak, the

government would provide cash to help stabilize the situation until the economy re-strengthened.

Butz's first Farm Bill scrapped that system and replaced it with direct payment subsidies.

For every bushel of corn sold below a government determined target price, the USDA

would write a check that made up the difference. Suddenly, all measures of balance and

farsightedness were removed from American agricultural policy: the message simply changed to

12 Ibid.13 Pollan, 51.

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"more." Farmers only had to sell as many bushels as humanly possible, at any price, and the

federal government would make sure they turned a profit. Butz encouraged farmers to grow

"fencerow to fencerow" and "get big or get out," rhetoric that earned him a reputation among his

enemies as a staunch advocate of industrial farming with little concern for anything but

economic growth.14 Undeniably, Butz was the forefather of agribusiness.

In the following years, corn prices plummeted as production skyrocketed. Farmers had no

choice- the government was paying for corn, so they grew corn, even as the market collapsed.

The price of corn eventually fell below the cost of production, and continued to fall.

Agribusiness companies like Cargill, Archer Daniels Midland, and Ralston Purina, to which Butz

was so closely tied, began shifting their entire business plans to revolve around cheap corn.

By the 1980s, long after Butz was forced to retire for racist remarks, his legacy was

cemented in legislature and supported by the agribusiness that profited so hugely from his Farm

Bill structure. Corn farmers fell further and further into poverty, as the target price of corn,

which determined the size of their subsidy checks, has been decreased with every subsequent

Farm Bill since 1973. As profits decreased, farmers did the only thing they could, and continue

to do: grow more corn. Success and bragging rights have come to belong to whoever can

maximize the number of bushels yielded per acre. The trend of overproduction leading to

depressed prices that started with Earl Butz's first Farm Bill has continued through the present,

dragging farmer's income steadily down with it, even as they improve their output.15

Eventually, the Ever-Normal Granary faded into obscurity and was abolished entirely in

the late 1980s.16 The shape of corn fields, and farms in general, which had remained essentially

14 Pollan, 51.15 Pollan, 53.16 Gardner, Bruce. "Plowing Farm Subsidies Under." American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy: AEI Outlooks & On the Issues. 22 June 2007. AEI Online: <http://www.aei.org/issue/26385>.

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unchanged for centuries, completely inverted in a fifty years. Food production giants established

themselves as unshakeable lobbyists. Prices continued to drop in grocery stores and restaurants

around the country. Americans, year by year, weaned themselves onto a diet of corn, corn and

more corn. Earl Butz had turned the US agricultural economy on its ear, and built a robust

agribusiness industry that birthed a new food chain on a foundation of dirt-cheap corn.

III. A Plague of Cheap Corn"Sometimes I think everyone here either gets a welfare check or a farm subsidy."

-Kevin Smith, Senator from Arkansas

In the fall of 2005, corn in Iowa was selling at $1.45 a bushel. In the same year, Iowa

State University estimated that it cost $2.87 to produce a single bushel of corn.17 Present those

numbers to any amateur economist and they would predict that, given the negative margin,

farmers would go out of business and production would decrease almost instantly. The

economics and psychology of corn farming are in direct opposition- despite the clarity of this

numeric trend, corn production is only increasing. Government subsidies have destroyed basic

economic logic and helped birth a giant industry of artificially low prices. Put more simply by

author Thomas Friedman: "Bottom line: the markets [are] distorted.” The economic anomaly

created by USDA-subsidized corn has skewed our environment, our economy, our diets and

more.

The historic small farm was ecologically harmonious: livestock replenished and fertilized

depleted soil, which could then produce crops to feed the farmer and the livestock. The cycle was

perpetuated by principles that cheap, high-yield corn has eradicated. Chemical fertilizers allow

farmers to chase the highest possible subsidy check by overworking land and maximizing corn

17 Duffy, Mike and Darnell Smith. Historical Costs of Crop Production (File A1-21). Iowa State University, February 2009. Online at: <http://www.extension.iastate.edu/agdm/crops/html/a1-21.html>.

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output. The USDA pays approximately 28 cents per bushel of corn, regardless of market price. If

the price falls below the target "loan rate", additional deficiency payments greatly increase the

subsidy per bushel. Combined, these two forms of subsidization equal a little more than 25% of

the 19 billion dollars taxpayers give to farmers annually.18 And those checks equal more than

half the income of an average corn farmer in 2009.

Still, despite the seemingly lavish subsidies, farmers are going broke. In the mid-1930s,

there were 6 million farms in American - by 2007, there were only 2 million.19 Most government

support systems, like Medicaid and welfare, are distributed on the basis of need. The Farm Bill

works in almost the opposite fashion. Crop subsidies are awarded based on two criteria: the type

of crop grown, "with 90 percent of all farm subsidies awarded to farms produce wheat, corn, rice

and soybeans," and the quantity of crop grown, rewarding the highest output. This leaves 2 out of

every 3 farm subsidy dollars going to the wealthiest 10 percent of farmers, and 60 percent of

farmers completely unsubsidized.20 The bottom 80 percent of subsidized farmers receive less

than one sixth of the total dollars given by the USDA.

So, as long as they grow one of the four crops the government wants, large agribusinesses

are rewarded with the biggest subsidies, while farmers growing the other 400 crops common on

American farms are left empty handed. And as the rich get richer, they buy out family operations

and further the industrialization of agriculture. The USDA publicly affirmed that family farms of

under 100 acres are currently in "rapid decline."21

18 Pollan, 61.19 Gardner.20 Riedl, Brian M. "How Farm Subsidies Became America's Largest Corporate Welfare Program." Heritage Foundation: Issues - Federal Budget and Spending. 25 February 2002: Backgrounder #1520. Online at: <http://www.heritage.og/research/budget/bg1520.cfm>.21 Becker, Elizabeth. "Land Rich in Subsidies, and Poor in Much Else." New York Times. 22 January 2002. NY Times Online: <http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/22/us/land-rich-in-subsidies-and-poor-in-much-else.html>.

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Lobbying power has limited any change dissenters have tried to make. One provision in

the Farm Bill rewards multiple smaller properties as opposed to large farms, a clause defenders

of agribusiness tote as rebuff to accusations that big farms monopolize the industry. However,

large operations easily exploit this law by legally dividing a single operation into many and

reaping the benefits. Tyler Farms, located in Arkansas, collected $23.8 million in additional

subsidies between 1996 and 200 by dividing into 66 separate "corporations," all run by the same

overseeing company.22 The Farm Security Act of 2001 (H.R. 2646) and the Agriculture

Conservation and Rural Enhancement Act of 2002 (S. 1731) were also played off as solutions to

inequality, but instead increased corn subsidies and skewed them further towards large

agribusiness.

In 1996, one dissenting bill, the Freedom to Farm Act, was experimentally enacted.

However, as soon as real economic forces began bringing corn prices back up towards the reality

of production costs, agribusiness lobbyists had the Act reversed and more than $30 billion

dollars in "emergency aid" was pumped into the corn industry. Senate Agriculture Committee

Chairman Collin Peterson explained by saying, "[It happened] because the farm programs helped

farmers prosper."23 In 2007, President Bush began threatening to veto the largest proposed Farm

Bill the government had ever seen, proclaimed by Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns to be "a

step backward." However, as predicted by Dan Glickman, the Agriculture Secretary under

President Clinton, Bush caved under pressure from lobbyists and failed to follow through. The

next Farm Bill contained no major departures from its predecessors.24

22 Ibid23 Bjerga, Alan. "Bush's Opposition to 'Soviet' Farm Bill May Get Plowed Under." Bloomberg News. 23 July 2007. Bloomberg Online: <http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aCgkJHpe5qvE&refer=us>.24 Ibid

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By giving farmers no choice but to grow corn (or three other commodities like it) to the

greatest possible excess, the government has pushed average yields per acre close to 200

bushels.25 This is an impressive accomplishment, but not for farmers- it benefits the government

and the agribusinesses the government indirectly subsidizes. These giant companies are the key

to an industrial complex that has pinned corn farmers down, and is slowly bleeding them dry.

Livestock, another source of profit for the traditional farmer, was stripped from farmers

with the advent of chemical fertilizer and, of course, cheap corn. With no need for the fertilizer

they produce, and corn feed available for less than the cost of production (thanks to subsidies),

steer and other former "farm animals" moved off the pasture and into concentrated animal

feeding operations (CAFOs). The government encouraged this switch, as it gave more business

to food producers, helped employ cheap back into the domestic economy and created more low-

cost food for consumers. Agricultural subsidies were offered to large corporations to assist in the

building of CAFOs, and the meat grading system was altered to favor the marbling found in

corn-fed beef over grass-fed beef. Even in the face of environmental pressure, the government

has declined to make CAFOs obey clean air and water laws.26 USDA inspection regulations also

make it nearly impossible for small operations to exist: output has to be at an industrial level to

merit the constant attention of a paid inspector it takes to earn the government's stamp of

approval. Merely an extension of cheap corn, CAFOs are a source of low-quality, mass-produced

food that can only exist due to oversized subsidies.

On top of controlling most domestic uses of corn, these companies export 20% of the

American harvest overseas. Farm subsidies, with an additional boost from export subsidies,

allow US companies to sell commodities in the third world for far less than local farmers can

25 Pollan, 55.26 Pollan, 200.

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afford to produce it. Poor countries rely heavily on agriculture as a foundation for developing

economy, but they cannot hope to compete with the unrealistically low prices American

companies can afford to sell at with the USDA's aid. Despite the depressing affect this has on the

world economy, there is little that can be done to slow the cyclical market agribusinesses have

created through government subsidies. In 2004, Brazil brought such an accusation against the US

in front of the World Trade Organization, citing USDA data about cotton prices. The WTO

found the United States at fault, declaring that American subsidies were lowering world prices

and harming commodity producers around the globe. However, with no international force

capable of enforcing such a conviction, US policies went unchanged. The federal government

paid a fine, and then passed a Farm Bill in 2007 that clearly violated the regulations mandated by

the WTO in 2004.27 Adding insult to injury, current tariff barriers make it nearly impossible for

third world farmers to attempt to sell in the US.

The Farm Bill proposes to subsidize national agriculture, but instead supports a handful

of wealthy corn executives and, mainly, the agribusinesses that turn profit based purely on corn

prices depressed with taxpayer dollars. Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland, two prominent

companies built on utilizing corn products, buy an estimated one third of all the corn produced in

the United States annually. The corporations thrive off corn subsidies: "they [Cargill and ADM]

provide the pesticide and fertilizer to farmers, operate most of America's grain elevators, broker

and ship most of the exports; perform the wet and dry milling; feed the livestock and then

slaughter the corn-fattened animals; distill the ethanol; and manufacture the high-fructose corn

syrup and the numberless other fractions derived from field corn."28

27 Brown, 148.28 Pollan, 63.

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The industrialized economic cycle created by these corn-based corporations is robust. In

2000, 15 Fortune 500 companies (such as the two previously mentioned, Westvaco, Chevron and

John Hancock Mutual) were major subsidy recipients.29 The production of corn supports the

greater economy. The food system, from farm to grocery store, uses more fossil fuel than any

other part of our economy after automobiles, providing 19% of the business that makes oil

companies profitable.30 Chemical and biotech companies profit steadily off of agriculture

innovation. Pharmaceutical businesses create the products necessary to keep animals healthy in

CAFOs. Crop commodities are one of the largest exports the US has. Agribusinesses themselves

are major monetary players domestically. Our food economy alone is massive- it uses as much

energy as the entire economy of the United Kingdom. Only one-fifth of that energy is used by

farmers, and identically only one-fifth of consumer food spending reaches farmers- the rest is

dispersed through the industrial complex created around cheap corn.31

The production of cheap corn supports and perpetuates billions of dollars of commerce.

So even as farmers go broke and the price of field corn continues to depreciate, the constant race

to grow continues. Growing corn helps support the industrial market that drives the subsidies,

and more corn growth. The government creates bigger and bigger budgets for the Farm Bill

because it is good business. It brings more activity to the economy, more profit to US companies

and lower prices to the consumer, all at seemingly no cost to the average American. However,

the hidden costs manifested in the health of our population and environment are severe and

rapidly approaching critical mass.

IV. HIDDEN COSTS

29 Riedl.30 Pollan, Michael. "Farmer in Chief." New York Times Magazine. 9 October 2008. NY Times Online: <http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/magazine/12policy- t.html>.31 Brown, 36.

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"Cheap food is only cheap because of government handouts and regulatory indulgence, not to mention the exploitation of workers, animals and the environment on which its putative

"economics" depend. Cheap food is food dishonestly priced - it is in fact unconscionably expensive."-Michael Pollan, Farmer in Chief

The onset of widespread obesity in the United States has stirred up endless press,

research and political debate in the last decade. America was the fattest country on the planet

until very recently, and we are still a close second to Australia. Most researchers pinpoint the

1970s as the acceleration point for rising rates of obesity, when they turned up noticeably.32 This

happens to be the same decade that Earl Butz upset forty years of agricultural stability and

instated his own Farm Bill. While the overproduction encouraged by the USDA's new policies

ensured food production and pricing would not influence politics, it did influence our diets.

As grain got cheaper and cheaper, corn worked its way through the food chain. Cheap

corn led to cheap calories in countless forms- corn syrups, oils, meats, cheeses and endless

nutritionally devoid snacks. In 1980, high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) was invented. By 2000 it

was the leading sweetener in the country, with 530 million bushels of corn being converted into

17.5 billion pounds of HFCS annually.33 Making HFCS from field corn is cheaper than buying

sugar, so businesses were quick to make the financial decision- disregarding the fattening affect

it had on the American population. Similarly, cheap corn feed has allowed us to consume large

amounts of meat at low prices. The quality of this meat is so low that most media documenting

its production, such as the films Meet Your Meat or Supersize Me, are met with shock, disgust

and disbelief.

Cheap and "fast" food has become a hallmark of American culture. While the

marginalization of food policy and deterioration of American nutrition seems like societal

32 Pollan, 103.33 Pollan, 103.

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negligence, it makes economic sense that monetary restraints would force some consumers

towards the cheapest calories. Those happen to be fats and sugars derived from cheap corn.

However, that argument is largely negated by the fact that Americans spend a smaller percentage

of their disposable income on food than any other industrialized nation.34

Our health suffers as a result. Of the top 10 causes of death in America, 4 are chronic

diseases linked to diet. As food spending decreased from 18% household income in 1960 to 10%

a household in 2009, healthcare spending went from 5% of the national income to 16% over the

same time period.35 Antibiotics are loosing their effectiveness as low quality standards in CAFOs

have increased the frequency of illness. Still, food policy only garners minor attention from

politicians. Our current system of food production is built on monocultures of corn and grain that

result in cheap and empty calories, and perpetuated by government subsidies. The fact that we

subsidize high fructose corn syrup but do not subsidize carrots puts things acutely in

perspective.36 Low monetary costs have satisfied consumers and kept attention away from

agribusiness, but the actual price levied against public health is overwhelmingly clear.

The environmental affects of corn-driven industries are just as grave. In 1940, farms

produced 2.3 calories of food energy for every calorie of fossil fuel spent. Now it takes 10

calories of fossil fuel on a cornfield to get 1 calorie to the super market.37 Despite massive

advances in technology and yield, modern factory farms have become far less environmentally

efficient in the last century. Additionally, the "cheap energy" attitude of the US has created

extended supply chains, with local grocery stores carrying food products from all over the world.

Feeding ourselves this way contributes more to global warming then anything else we do as a

34 Pollan, 243.35 Pollan, Farmer in Chief.36 Pollan, 108.37 Pollan, Farmer in Chief.

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country, with one study suggesting as much as 37% of greenhouse gas emissions are derived

from the production and transportation of food.38

Forcing the highest possible yield, as corn farmers are encouraged to do by the direct

payment subsidy policy, inundates soil with ammonium nitrate. This hurts the surrounding

ecology and reduces the fertility of the ground. Factory farms, along with CAFOs, use exorbitant

amounts of water, an increasingly pressing issue as world water supplies deplete. Special

environmental provisions have been added to the Farm Bill to drastically reduce pollution and

emissions restrictions for CAFOs and industrialized farming. Not only are we making food that's

worse for us, but it's worse for the environment too. And the government is giving agribusiness

the monetary tools and legislative room to proceed at full tilt.

It is the USDA's roll to represent the agricultural needs of the people, using taxpayer

money to protect nutrition and food security. Instead, the opposite has been done. Corn subsidies

favor Happy Meals over the wellbeing of farmers and consumers as a whole. The affordability of

fast food is a lie. It ignores the cost of environmental degradation to water, air and soil, the

deteriorating quality of public health and the wellbeing of agricultural employees across the

country. However, these costs already are levied against American citizens indirectly through

taxes to pay for health care and farm subsidies and the destruction of our ecosystem. Agriculture

is traditionally the key to food security, but the Farm Bill makes it a liability.

America is currently wrapped in the grip of the industrial agribusiness economy that is

fueled, day in and day out, by cheap corn. We are surrounded by subsidized grain and regularly

afflicted by its negative impact on culture and society. Until the legislature governing our food

system changes, crop subsidies will perpetuate the same forty-year cycle of low prices and low

quality. The cheap food we have worn as a point of pride is slowly draining the health of our

38 Ibid.

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economy and population, taxing us heavily economically and environmentally. Any hope our

nation has for improving our personal, ecological, financial or societal health is vain while

dishonest corn and food pricing are the norm. Recognizing the true cost of corn and crop

subsidies is integral to American progress in the coming years.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Becker, Elizabeth. "Land Rich in Subsidies, and Poor in Much Else." New York Times. 22 January 2002. NY Times Online: <http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/22/us/land-rich-in-subsidies-and-poor-in-much-else.html>.

Bjerga, Alan. "Bush's Opposition to 'Soviet' Farm Bill May Get Plowed Under." Bloomberg News. 23 July 2007. Bloomberg Online: <http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aCgkJHpe5q vE&refer=us>.

Brown, Lester R. Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2008.

Dubner, Stephen J. "The Illogic of Farm Subsidies, and Other Agricultural Truths. New York Times. 24 July 2008. NY Times Online: <http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/24/the-illogic-of-farm-subsidies-and-other-agricultural-truths/>.

Duffy, Mike and Darnell Smith. Historical Costs of Crop Production (File A1-21). Iowa State University, February 2009. Online at: <http://www.extension.iastate.edu/agdm/crops/html/a1-21.html>.

Friedman, Thomas L. Hot, Flat, and Crowded. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008.

Gardner, Bruce. "Plowing Farm Subsidies Under." American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy: AEI Outlooks & On the Issues. 22 June 2007. AEI Online: <http://www.aei.org/issue/26385>.

17

Goldstein, Richard. "Earl L. Butz, Secretary Felled by Racial Remark, Is Dead at 98." New York Times. 4 February 2008. NY Times Online: <http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/04/washington/04butz.html>.

King Corn. Directed by Aaron Woolf. Written and Produced by Ian Cheney, Curtis Ellis, Jeffrey Miller and Aaron Woolf. Perf. Earl Butz, Michael Pollan Aaron Woolf and Curt Ellis. New Video Group, 2007.

Myers, Norman and Jennifer Kent. Perverse Subsidies: How Misused Tax Dollars Harm the Environment and the Economy. Washington, DC: Island Press, 2001.

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Pollan, Michael. The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. New York: Penguin Press, 2007.

Pyle, George B. Raising Less Corn, More Hell: Why Our Economy, Ecology and Security Demand The Preservation of the Independent Farm. New York: Public Affairs/Perseus Books Group, 2005.

Riedl, Brian M. "How Farm Subsidies Became America's Largest Corporate Welfare Program." Heritage Foundation: Issues - Federal Budget and Spending. 25 February 2002: Backgrounder #1520. Online at: <http://www.heritage.org/research/budget/bg1520.cfm>.

Roberts, Paul. The End of Food. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2008.

Wilson, Kelpie. "Corn: Used and Abused." Organic Consumers Association: truthout. 20 July 2005. Online at: <http://www.organicconsumers.org/corn/abused072705.cfm>.

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