Early Ohio Corn Industry

Main Point # 1 - Corn’s versatility, global demand, and profit margin has led the over grown grass to emerge as America’s number one crop. The USDA evaluated corn’s crop value to be $76.9 billion in 2011, making it a huge contributor to the American economic system (National Corn Growers Association, 2017). Research gathered by Duke University found that the U.S. produced 40% of the world’s supply, 10% of which comes from the small town of Constantine, Michigan while an additional 10% is produced from the surrounding areas (“U.S and Employment,” 2015; Motz, T., 2016). These spikes in corn’s global demand have created an opportunity for farmers and mid-western field workers to become involved in the growing and profitable industry.

Pollan writes , " The way we eat represents our most profound engagement with the natural world. Daily, our eating turns nature into culture, transforming the body of the world into our bodies and minds.” (Pollan,386 ). In the book “ Farm city “, Carpenter, who started an urban farm deep in an Oakland ghetto. She showed what is important about food, and what is lacking in our food culture. She pointed out the issues of local food by demonstrating that it could be done on anywhere, even if your community is full of gangsters. She started raising her own food and learned about animal husbandry, her neighbors, and herself. Furthermore, eating less corn-fed meat, or shifting corn toward more efficient dairy, poultry, pork and grass-fed beef systems, would allow American to get more food from each bushel of corn. The US government should encourage American farmers explore other methods for growing corn, including better conventional, organic, biotech and conservation farming methods that can dramatically reduce chemical inputs, water use, soil losses and impacts on

The history of corn can be dated back to the beginning of time, but the use and value of corn had been unnoticed until it was introduce by the Native Americans. Where corn had seemed to be a big part of their everyday life from, being in myths, legends, and for a huge portion of their diet corn was an essential component. "when the Europeans had touched base to the New World during the late fifteenth century, the Native Americans had introduced corn what they had called maize to the Europeans .This crop was then later on grown and adapted from Canada to southern South America very quickly, which then began to form the new basis of the New World civilization" (Leventin & McManhon, 2012). The way corn has been changing and revolutionizing throughout time has been both fascinating and drastic. Rather than conventional corn being grown, it is genetically modified corn that have been dominating today 's crop industry and farming but the question remains as to how the various types of GMO corn has influenced the way it is grown and used and what its ramification are.

Native Americans started the development of maize. In 1491 Mann says, “Indians developed an extraordinary number of maize varieties for different growing conditions, which meant that the crop could and did spread throughout the planet”(pg17). With the spread of maize the Indians caused several

Cincinnati was the largest city in Ohio, with almost 300,000 people. Cincinnati had the densest population of any city in the United States. They had an average of 37,143 people per square mile. Over fifteen railroads connected Cincinnati to other parts of the United States. The major industry in Cincinnati was iron production, followed closely by meatpacking, cloth production, and woodworking. Cincinnati's industries employed 103,325 people in 1887, and produced more than 200 million dollars in

Corn is not the ideal nutritious food. It wreaks havoc on the animal;s' digestive system and gets turned into sweeteners that makes people obese, aside from giving us an unhealthy diet. In other words, the industrial food chain that American man is sustained on is largely based on corn, whether in its direct form, fed to livestock, or processed into chemicals such as glucose, and the cheapest forms of these are high-fructose corn syrup and ethanol. The former, particularly, through a combination of biological, cultural, and political factors, appears in the cheapest and most common of foods that constitute the American diet. It is the ingredient that results in obesity, and, since it appears in the cheapest products, the ingredients that more poor, than wealthier individuals, consume.

Agriculture served as the material foundation for the natives. Corn was the heart of this foundation because it was so versatile. In

Corn was a main crop of the Native Americans, while bread has been a staple in almost all civilizations since the agricultural revolution, allowing a natural combination. Native Americans showed early European settlers how to grow, harvest and care for corn

During the Mississippian era natives began living in organized societies. The emergence of these societies came from the cultivation of corn. As corn became a reliable staple to natives diets the population grew. As the population grew so did the societies. Social classes, commoners and elite, formed as well as the hierarchical political

Sustenance is a requirement that is universal to all living beings. Without food humans cannot survive. Native Americans were no exception to the rule. Like most peoples they developed methods of obtaining food; this becoming a key part of their culture. Different groups had different methods for gathering food. The southern natives had a corn based system “Their advanced agricultural practices, based primarily on the cultivation of maize, fed large populations...” (American Pageant, 8) Planting corn

Mesoamerica had various influences on Native North America, corn being one of the most important and influential resources provided by Mesoamerica. Mesoamericans taught Native North Americans how to domesticate corn which essentially provided them an advantage in survival. Corn was used as a support system for Native North Americans providing them the ability to settle in one location and support themselves nutritionally. From the domestication of corn, Native North Americans could create and maintain large societies. Along with the domestication of corn, Native North Americans also implemented the Mesoamericans food sources in the way of domesticating beans, peanuts, squash, potatoes, and chocolate. Along with the adoption of food sources

Since North America has a vast expanse of environmental conditions, many native societies adapted in different ways from each other. A key part of adaptation for societies from present-day Mexico northward into the present-day American Southwest and beyond was maize cultivation. Maize cultivation happened to increase populations and the development of irrigation systems began, rather than depending on hunting and gathering. However, some native societies had to depend on hunting and gathering, such as those in the Great Plains, Great Basin, and the Northwest. Since the Great Plains was a grassy land and the Great Basin was a dry, flat area, the people could not depend on natural resources. Those in the Northwest and modern-day California especially

By providing a more dependable and plentiful food supply, farming provided the basis for new lifestyles far more complex societies.” I agree with this because, by domesticating these three cereal grains and settling down to farm them, neither the human race or the grains could thrive without the other. Humans could not settle down and prosper without a crop to harvest every year because, without that, they would be forced to return to the nomadic lifestyle. Without developing permanent communities to farm these domesticated crops, society as we know it may have never developed.

While the domestication of grain and wheat would help shape other complex societies and civilizations, it would be the harvesting of corn that would eventually define the various tribes and groups that would later comprise and make up pre Colombian America. Therefore, the impact this crop would have on the region would be very essential to the survival of a people, and many fortunes that were vested into these empires as well as localized groups relied, plus depended on the cultivation of it. So much so, that in the Mesoamerica region, it would grow to be the essential item for the diet of the local populace. According to Frances Berdan, corn is a carbohydrate rich grain , and the carbs derived from this foodstuff provided would enable these

The film, King Corn, is a documentary by two college friends who moved to Greene, Iowa to grow and farm an acre of corn as an experiment. Corn is a type of plant eaten and used by millions of people in this world. Corn was originally from Mexico. However, due to our ancestor’s migration, it was brought over to the States. Corn used to be in many colors, consisting from red to white, and yellow. Eventually as time progressed, nowadays the corn sold in the supermarkets are all yellow.