America's Number One Commodity Crop
America’s largest crop is corn (maize). Corn is a readily available, reliable, storable and versatile commodity. In the average American supermarket, corn derived ingredients can be found in one-fourth of everything on the shelves. This includes not only food items, but also cosmetics, toiletries, cleaning products and household goods. Aside from that, corn is also used for the feeding of factory farm animals, for the production of alcohol, and can be used as a fuel source for both heat production and vehicles. On top of being a versatile commodity, corn has been genetically modified in a way that facilitates industrial-agricultural harvesting and large yields. Between the years 1920 and 1980, US corn yields increased 333 percent and continue to improve. The strains of corn used for industrial farming are engineered to grow in a uniform, perfectly upright fashion that facilitates mechanical harvesting. Corn is also modified to thrive in crowded conditions; 1 acre (0.40 ha) of land can accommodate around 30,000 plants and produce roughly 180 bushels of corn, with each bushel weighing in at 56 pounds. Genetic modifications have made it possible for certain strains of corn to be naturally insect resistant. Cheap and readily available chemical pesticides and synthetic fertilizers have contributed greatly to high crop yields; corn has also been engineered to tolerate chemicals and to efficiently utilize petrochemical fertilizers. Increases in the productivity of corn have helped to keep food prices low. America’s number one crop has an undeniably important place in both the economy and in peoples' diets. Versatility, affordability and the promise of large yields makes corn the perfect capitalist commodity crop. While commodity corn farming has important benefits, it can also have negative effects socially, economically and environmentally.
Read more about this topic: Issues In American Commodity Farming
Famous quotes containing the words america, number, commodity and/or crop:
“Tell [the next Miss America] she is taking on a great responsibility. A responsibility to herself, to her people, to the Miss American Pageant, the people of Atlantic City, her state and her nation. Tell her the country and the world will judge America by her.”
—Colleen Kay Hutchins (b. c. 1932)
“Among a hundred windows shining
dully in the vast side
of greater-than-palace number such-and-such
one burns
these several years, each night
as if the room within were aflame.”
—Denise Levertov (b. 1923)
“There used to be a thing or a commodity we put great store by. It was called the People. Find out where the People have gone. I don’t mean the square-eyed toothpaste-and-hair-dye people or the new-car-or-bust people, or the success-and-coronary people. Maybe they never existed, but if there ever were the People, that’s the commodity the Declaration was talking about, and Mr. Lincoln.”
—John Steinbeck (1902–1968)
“And, by the way, who estimates the value of the crop which nature yields in the still wilder fields unimproved by man? The crop of English hay is carefully weighed, the moisture calculated, the silicates and the potash; but in all dells and pond-holes in the woods and pastures and swamps grows a rich and various crop only unreaped by man.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)