If the opportunity Republic Droids Star Wars Rethink
This essay was originally published on and is reproduced here with permission.
Nothing dominates the American landscape, such as corn.
Sprawling across the Midwest and Great Plains, the US corn belt is a huge thing, you can drive to central Pennsylvania all the way to western Nebraska, a journey of about 1,500 miles, and witness in all its No other American culture fame can match the size of corn.
The main reason is that corn is a productive and versatile crop that meets the investment in research, selection and promotion It has very high yields compared to most other US crops, it grows almost everywhere in the country, especially booming in the Midwest and Great Plains again, it can be turned into an incredible range of corn products can be used for food such as corn flour, cornmeal, cornmeal , beans or sweet corn can be used as animal feed to help fatten our pigs, chickens and cattle and it can be turned into corn syrup rich in fructose ethanol or even bioplastics.
But it is important to distinguish corn harvesting corn System Since corn is very productive, flexible and successful he has been a mainstay of American agriculture for decades, and there is no doubt that this will be a crucial component of US agriculture in the future, however, many are beginning to question the corn as a system how it dominates American agriculture compared to other operating systems; how in America, it is mainly used for ethanol, animal feed and high-fructose corn syrup; how it consumes natural resources; and how he enjoys preferential treatment from our government.
The current corn system is not a good thing for America for four main reasons.
US corn is inadequate to feed people Most people would agree that the primary objective of agriculture should be feeding people While other objectives especially income generation, the creation of jobs and promote rural development are too important criticism, the ultimate success of any agricultural system should be measured in part by how it provides food for a growing population, after all, feeding people is why agriculture there first.
While US corn is a very productive culture, with typical yields between 140 and 160 bushels per acre, resulting delivery of food by maize system is much weaker today's corn crop is mainly used for biofuels about 40 percent of US corn is used for ethanol and animal feed as about 36 percent of the US corn and distillers grain left over from ethanol production is fed to livestock, pigs and chickens much of the rest is exported only a tiny part of the national corn crop is used directly for food for Americans, much of that for high fructose corn syrup.
Yes, corn to feed the animals produce valuable food for people, mainly in the form of dairy products and meat, but only after significant losses of calories and proteins along the way for the animals fed with corn, the efficiency of converting grain into meat and dairy calories varies from about 3 percent to 40 percent, depending on the animal production system in question what all this means is that some of the corn crop actually ends feed the US It's just math the average cornfield Iowa has the potential to provide more than 15 million enough calories per acre each year to support 14 people per acre, with a diet of 3000 calories day, so we ate all our own corn, but the current distribution of corn to ethanol production and animal, we end up with about 3 million calories of food per acre per year, mainly dairy products and meat, enough to support three people per acre, which is below the average calorie food delivery firm Bang ladesh, Egypt and Vietnam.
In short, the corn crop is very productive, but corn system is aligned to fuel cars and animals instead of feeding people.
There are several ways to improve the delivery of food from the First Nation corn system and foremost, moving away corn for biofuels would generate more food for the world, lower demand for cereals , reduce the pressure of prices of basic products, and reduce the workload of consumers around the world more, eat less meat corn-fed, or movement of the maize to the most efficient dairy, poultry, pork and beef grass-fed systems, enable us to get more food from each bushel of corn and diversify the corn belt in the wider combination of agricultural systems, including other crops and farms of livestock fattening, could produce much more food and a more varied diet and nutritious than the current system.
Maize system uses a large amount of natural resources Even if it does not provide as much food as comparable systems in the world, the US corn system continues to use much of the natural resources of our country.
In the US corn uses more land than any other crop, covering approximately 97 million acres of an area roughly the size of California US corn also consumes a large quantity of our freshwater resources, approximately 5 6 cubic miles per year of irrigation water withdrawn from rivers and aquifers America and the use of fertilizers for maize is massive 5 6 million tonnes of nitrogen applied to corn each year by fertilizers chemical, and nearly a million tons of manure nitrogen, much of this fertilizer, as well as large amounts of soil, washing in the nation of lakes, rivers and coastal seas, polluting waters and harm ecosystems along the path of the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico is the largest and most emblematic example.
And the resources devoted to maize cultivation increased dramatically between 2006 and 2011, the amount of farmland devoted to growing corn in America has increased by over 13 million acres, mainly in response to corn prices in increase and the growing demand for ethanol most of these new acres of corn came from farms, including those growing wheat which lost 2 9 million acres, oats July 1 million acres lost, sorghum 1 million acres lost, barley, alfalfa, sunflower and other crops that leaves us with a less diverse uS agricultural landscape, with even more land under maize monoculture and in a recent study published in the Proceedings of the national Academy of sciences about 1 | 3 million acres of meadows and grasslands were converted to corn and other uses in the western corn belt between 2006 and 2011 , presenting a threat to rivers, wetlands and the species that live there.
Looking at the land, water, fertilizer and land costs together, we could say that the corn system uses more natural resources than any other agricultural system in America, while offering only modest benefits in foods It Sá compromised doubtful depletion of natural resources to provide relatively little food and nutrition in the world but it doesn not need to be this way innovative farmers are exploring other methods of maize, including best conventional farming methods , biological, biotechnological and conservation can significantly reduce chemical inputs, use of water, soil loss and impacts on wildlife We should encourage US farmers to continue these improvements.
Maize system is very vulnerable to shocks Although a large monocultures that dominates much of the country with a unique culture system could be an effective and profitable way to grow corn on an industrial scale, there is a price to be so big, with so little diversity given enough time, most massive monocultures fail, often spectacularly and with high demand today and low cereal stocks, maize prices are very volatile, driving spikes in commodity prices in the world in these conditions, a single disaster, disease, pests, or economic slowdown could cause major disruption in corn system.
The monolithic nature of corn production presents a systemic risk to agriculture in America, with impacts ranging from food prices to feed prices and energy prices It also presents a potential threat to our economy and for taxpayers who end up paying the bill when things go wrong it isn t rocket science You wouldn t invest in a mutual fund that has been dominated by a single company, because it would be unbearably But it is risky what we do with American agriculture simply too many of our agricultural eggs in one basket.
A more resilient agricultural system would start with the diversification of our cultures, transferring part of the maize monocultures a landscape rich with a variety of crops, pastures and grasslands It more closely mimic natural ecosystems and include a mix of perennial seasonal plants and not only different summer annuals with shallow roots that are particularly susceptible to dry spells in addition, it would include the conservation work and practices of organic farming that improve soil conditions by restoring the structure soil, organic matter and water holding capacity, making agricultural landscapes much more resistant to floods and droughts the overall result would be a landscape better prepared to face the next drought, flooding, disease or pests.
Maize system operates at a huge cost to taxpayers Finally, corn system receives more US government subsidies than any other crop, including direct payments, crop insurance payments and mandates to produce the ethanol overall, agricultural subsidies of the US corn amounted to approximately 90 billion between 1995 and 2010 besides ethanol subsidies and mandates, which helped to drive up the price of corn.
Today, one of the largest corn subsidies in the form of crop insurance subsidized by the federal Actually, for crop insurance programs in the United States the 2012 season will probably pay about 20 billion or more shattering all records Amazingly, these records are paid subsidies that corn was just one of the most lucrative years of history Even with the drought of 2012, the high prices means that US corn beaten the record sales figures, meaning the record of subsidies during a year of record sales.
Of course, some farmers have been hit hard by drought than others, and crop insurance programs are intended to help make up for these losses is a noble goal, but taxpayers should pay prices higher for a culture that has never been harvested.
It might be time to rethink our agricultural subsidy programs, to focus tax dollars where they will achieve the greatest public good, we must help farmers recover their losses during a natural disaster, which the makes it all again, but not make the crop costs We should also consider helping all farmers who suffered losses, not just those increasingly certain commodity crops and we should seek to support the farmers for the important things that commercializes Don t address, such as reducing runoff and erosion, improved soil and biodiversity, and creating jobs for rural America farmers are stewards of the most fertile land our country and should be rewarded for their work to manage these resources.
As a crop, maize is an amazing thing and an essential part of a US agricultural toolbox, but corn system as we know it today, is an agricultural juggernaut, consuming more land, natural resources and more taxpayer money than any other operating system in the modern history of the United States as a large monocultures, it is a vulnerable house of cards, perched precariously balanced on public subsidies funded and the resulting benefits for our food system are rare, the majority of calories harvested lost to the production of ethanol or feedlot animals in short, our investment of financial and natural resources does not pay the best dividends to our national diet, our rural communities, our federal budget and our environment, it's time to re-imagine a system.
This reinvented agricultural system would be a more diverse landscape, corn, weaving and many types of cereals, oilseeds, fruits, vegetables, pastures and meadows production practices would blend the best of conventional agriculture, conservation, biotechnology and biological the subsidies would be designed to reward farmers to produce more healthy and nutritious food while preserving rich soil, clean water and thriving landscapes for future generations This system would feed more people, employ more farmers and more durable and stronger than anything we have today.
It is important to note that these criticisms corn system over a largely juggernaut created by lobbyists, trade associations, large enterprises and the government are not for farmers Farmers are the people who work the hardest in America, are the pillars of their community, it would be simply wrong to blame for these problems in the economic and political landscape, they would be crazy not to grow corn; farmers simply deliver what the markets and policies require What needs to change here is the system not farmers.
And no matter what happens, it won t mean the end of corn, far away corn will always be a major player in American agriculture, but with the current dominant system corn our use of natural resources and funds public, while providing less food and nutrition than other agricultural systems, it is time to ask hard questions and demand better solutions.
Jonathan Foley, GlobalEcoGuy, is the director of the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota Opinions expressed here are his own and do not reflect those of the University of Minnesota or other organization.
It is time to rethink the US corn scientific system in America, time, rethink, america.
Тиме, Норвегия