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Students: Hanna B, Stewart D, Karen L, Stephanie N
This Cross Cultural Rhetoric blog is a project between Stanford University students in Palo Alto, California, and students at the American University in Cairo to explore varying cultures’ perspectives on world issues.
Specifically, our group is focusing on how awareness of the globalization of food commodities can shed light on the global food crisis. In this entry, we examine how the globalization of the corn industry has specifically affected food availability around the world.
Source: http://climateprogress.org/2008/04/03/corn-hits-a-new-record-6-a-bushel/
In recent years, the number of uses for corn, always a key human food source, has expanded. For example, factory farms have started feeding their livestock corn products rather than their natural grass-based diet. In addition, scientific breakthroughs have led to the use of corn as a biodiesel fuel in the form of ethanol.
As discussed in “Our Daily Bread” by Rosamond Naylor and Walter Falcon, published in Boston Review, demand for corn due to these new uses has increased so much that supply cannot keep up. As a result, there is a scarcity of corn, the global market for corn has expanded, and prices have skyrocketed. Due to the globalization of the corn market, the highest bidder can purchase the corn, leaving none for the hungry nations that rely on it for sustenance. According to the authors, “consumers of corn tortillas in poor countries will find themselves increasingly in competition with SUV owners in rich countries.”
These new uses of corn have their drawbacks. For example, when fed to animals, 90% of the corn’s original energy is expended in metabolic processes. In addition, ethanol is also an inefficient use of as a fuel because it takes up a great deal of volume and is expensive to store.
Thus, it may be favorable to return to the most traditional use of corn, primarily as a human food source. Future science should focus on deriving biofuel from inedible plant sources, to separate the food and fuel markets, thus negating the fuel industry’s impact on the global food crisis.
Source: http://www.chathamjournal.com/weekly/opinion/chatlist/ethanol-higher-grain-prices-80317.shtml
Comments
Really interesting post, and the images are great--they really demonstrate the growing movement that supports your argument against the use of corn in everything. I'm curious: with such compelling arguments against using corn, why would anyone want to argue for its continued use?
Posted by: Julia Bleakney | October 20, 2009 07:25 PM
I agree with you that corn must be used primairly as a human food source inorder to help the poor nations who cant afford the high prices of corn nowdays. i think that farmers should decrease feeding their livestock corn products as their are many other varieties of food that they can use. Some people will argue to continue the new uses of corn because some countries consume large amounts of fuel, so they use corn as a biodiesel fuel because their are no other substitudes yet for corn that they can use instead. Good job with the pictures!
Posted by: Mohamed Mostafa Hegazy | November 1, 2009 10:52 AM
love the way you tackle the ways in which corn has taken over the agricultural and manufacturing sects of society. we are turning corn into high fructose corn syrup and ethanol, rather than using corn as a raw material to feed the hungry. the corn crisis is directly connected to the malnutrition and obesity that plagues so much of the world. let's keep corn as a whole food, rather than adding an artificial enzyme/professing it into HFCS and leading to obesity.
Posted by: elise | November 2, 2009 04:43 PM
I think this blog entry also brings up the idea that society thinks technology is always better, when in reality it may not always be beneficial. Moving forward, it's important to truly evaluate whether or not scientific "advancements" will truly help us in the long run.
Posted by: Karen Ladenheim | November 2, 2009 05:30 PM