Winter Movies 2014: King Corn

Our last though-provoking movie, in which plants take central stage, is King Corn (2006), a documentary by Aaron Wolf, Ian Cheney, and Curt Ellis. This film investigates how corn has invaded the diets of Americans. Ian has his hair analyzed, and learns that most of the carbon in his body originates from corn. After college, Ian and his friend Curt move to Greene, Iowa to spend a year growing an acre of corn, and investigating how corn has come to dominate the American diet.

 

Both young men had ancestors who farmed in Greene. They rent an acre of land from a local farmer, and set about learning how to farm. The film follows the months of the farming year from January to November, investigating the farm subsidy and food distribution system in America. In the process we learn how the Farm Bill program changed in the 1970s, from controlling surplus, to subsidizing overproduction. This ensures we have plenty of food, and reduces the percentage of income needed to feed ourselves (from 32% of our income to 16%). We learn about use of genetically engineered corn, designed to be used with pesticides that kill everything in the field except the corn; and use of nitrogen based fertilizers to replenish the soil. At the end of the film, they harvest their one acre of corn, producing 180 bushels (when their ancestors farmed, 40 bushels per acre was considered average).

I found several items especially interesting such as the opinion expressed that the Farm Bill is supporting over production of low grade, practically inedible corn, rather than nutritious and healthy food. That the corn is used to feed livestock (not just to grain them out). That the process causes harm to the stock (if they were not slaughtered, they would die). That the corn is used to create corn syrup or fructose, used to sweeten almost everything from hamburgers to sodas to processed food (and thus fuelling rampant obesity in America). That we are truly made of corn, because corn, in some form, is used in everything. Take a look at the trailer: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1112115/