Informative Speech On Corn In Economics

In the early 1990s, the farm economy in the heartland of the United States was weak. Farmers in North Dakota produced hard, amber Durham wheat and exported 75% to Italy for the production of high quality pasta. Prices for raw wheat fluctuated radically, depending on weather and growing conditions. Many farmers were having difficulty meeting payments for the expensive farm machin- ery required for crop production. Small family farms were disappearing and non-farm jobs in the area were scarce. Although consumers were paying record prices for food, many farmers felt that processors, who converted the raw grains into finished products for sale in

Chapter one of The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan follows corn on its journey from acting as the primary crop of the Native Americans all the way to its introduction into the industrial setting. Pollan makes it explicitly clear that corn is in everything. Behind all the chemicals listed in the “ingredients” section on a product, consumers will find corn. Corn even plays a role in our chemical makeup. Because of corn’s ability to intake more carbon than most other plants, it does not have a preference over the carbon isotopes it consumes. By looking at the carbon isotope ratios in humans, we can determine how much corn one has eaten. Pollan states that corn’s variability is what makes it such an important crop. The European settlers

Growing up on a small family wheat farm in southwestern Oklahoma, I have experienced the harsh conditions of farming firsthand. The job that used to employ the largest amount of people in the United States has lost the support and the respect of the American people. The Jeffersonian Ideal of a nation of farmers has been tossed aside to be replaced by a nation of white-collar workers. The family farm is under attack and it is not being protected. The family farm can help the United States economically by creating jobs in a time when many cannot afford the food in the stores. The family farm can help prevent the degradation of the environment by creating a mutually beneficial relationship between the people producing the food and nature. The family farm is the answer to many of the tough questions facing the United States today, but these small farms are going bankrupt all too often. The government’s policy on farming is the largest factor in what farms succeed, but simple economics, large corporations, and society as a whole influence the decline in family farms; small changes in these areas will help break up the huge corporate farms, keeping the small family farm afloat.

Michael Pollan's "The Omnivore's Dilemma" dives deep into the influence of corn on industrial food production. In chapter 1, Pollan makes it very clear the connections between corn production and the foods that Americans consume, like fast food. He highlights how corn, from its creation in fields to its making into processed foods and fast food, spreads through our diets. As said, in chapter 1 by Pollan When I started trying to follow the industrial food chain, the one that now feeds most of us most of the time and typically culminates, either in a supermarket or fast food meal, I expected that in my investigations would lead me to a wide variety of places, and though my journey did take me to great many states, and covered great many miles at the very end of these food changes, which is to say at the very beginning and variably, found myself, and almost exactly the same place a farm, and a farm, and a field in the American corn belt” (Pollan 17) Pollan argues that this dependence on one crop has numerous environmental and health consequences, urging readers to rethink the hidden consequences of their food

The United States of America is the world’s largest corn overproducer. With such heavy focus on corn, I would like to draw attention to a measure taken by the United States government, the Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act of 1996. This act increased the amount of farm land that is meant to be used in the States for growing corn from 60 million acres to a whopping 90 million acres. Such a significant increase cannot go without some kind of effect. Writer, Michael Pollan, in his book “The Omnivore’s Dilemma”, discusses the instability of the US farming industry as well as the negative environmental implications corn has on us. This instability and environmental impact has given rise to movements promoting a return to more

In 'Industrial Corn-Destroying Our Health & Environment ", Pollan points out that zea is a common crop that grows into corn. It is the most commonly planted ccereal crop, and serves, Pollan argues, to serve political interests rather than authentic human needs. Taxpayers pay farmers to grow corn, despite the already plentiful growth of the crop, and zea/ corn has become indispensable to the American food sector. This is so because corn is cheap and therefore it benefits the govenment to produce it. To that end, everything and everyone, from animals to humans, is fed on a steady diet of corn.

Pollan argues that “... taxpayers will pay farmers $4 billion a year to grow ever more corn, this despite the fact that we struggle to get rid of the surplus the plant already produces” (para. 4). This explains that many of the farmers are getting paid more to just grow corn and to over grow them. Pollan vocalizes that “America's corn crop might look like a sustainable, solar-powered system for producing food, but it is actually a huge, inefficient, polluting machine that guzzles fossil fuel..”(Para 12). The corn needs a lot of gas to keep the production going which cause a lot of pollution in the world and, also globe warning. Consumer don't know what type of food or beverages have corn in them most of them don’t even know where their meat or what the animals are being feed because the government is hiding that away from them. Overall, this causes a lot of problems to the next generation and the government still only wants to make money out of the over growing of

Growing up in Nebraska I can tell you that I have ingested my fair amount of corn and corn-based products, I mean we are the Cornhuskers after all. But what is so special about corn? I ask this question because I want to know what is so special about corn and why is it in almost anything and everything we eat. America's agriculture is vast in the many types of plants that are planted and harvested every year, such as soybeans and wheat that are also used as an ingredient in many of our foods that we consume every day. When trying to answer this question I had to do some of my own investigative work, just as Pollan did when finding out all he could find out about corn. I researched the most grown grains in America, since corn is a grain, and to no surprise, it was corn but the second majorly grown crop that we Americans plant was soybeans. From there I

Many alterations have been applied to the area that corn is grown in. The main biome that corn is grown would be grasslands. Grasslands are an extremely important biome for producing food, it was shown that approximately 90% of the food produced today contains at least one of the fifteen species that are grown in grasslands. Unfortunately, for there to be enough space for corn to be grown and harvested, native grasses must be cleared, therefore having a devastating impact on the biome. Corn is known to be the most thirsty crop to be grown, taking up almost 7,000 to 8,000 gallons of water, draining countries, that don't receive as much rain, of their groundwater. Another impact on the environment of corn production would be the excessive use of fertilizers, this is due to the little nutrients returned back to the soil. As corn is mainly used for consumption, very little plant

First, Michael Pollan explains how corn is been used really “sprouted up” in the year 1947 after

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.

Former president George Washington once said, “Agriculture is the most healthful, most useful, and most noble employment of man,” (George Washington Quote). Since Washington’s presidency, countless advancements and developments within the agricultural industry have allowed the United States to grow, develop, and become one of the most prosperous countries in the entire world. Nevertheless, this prosperity is also marked by several key historical events, such as the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions, which have caused the core values and traditions that this great nation was built on to slowly disappear. Today, the majority of Americans have no knowledge, understanding, or appreciation for the agricultural industry, causing them to take for granted the basic necessities they rely on each day. This disconnection has created a gap between producers and consumers, which is known as

MP1- Compared to recent years fewer individuals are returning to or going into the agricultural industry.

“It is possible, I think, to say that a Christian agriculture is formed upon the understanding that it is sinful for people to misuse or destroy what they did not make. The creation is a unique, irreplaceable gift, therefore to be used with humility, respect, and skill”- Wendell Berry (Berry, The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture). This quote speaks numbers to me. I believe that agriculture, both animals and plants, should be farmed with humility, respect and skill, as said by Wendell Berry. It has, however, become a concern of mine that this is not the case in large industrial farms. The purpose of my speech is to persuade my audience that there is a need for large scale production of food to feed the growing population, but there needs to be some restrictions placed on certain practices in factory farming. I first became interested in agriculture when I joined 4-H and have since learned more through farming and studying animal science here at Penn State. Even though we need factory farming, factory farming should have restrictions because Confined Animal Feeding Operations and monoculture practices are doing more harm than good.

Throughout the years the Agricultural Act has allowed the federal government to award billions of dollars to farmers, that determines the foods grown and the foods we eat. The Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938 mandated the government to pay grant subsidies for corn, wheat and cotton, to maintain adequate supplies of these staple goods during low production times (Orden & Zulauf, 2015). The farm bill is revisited every five years, encompassing farm commodity prices and programs, income, farm credit, trade, agricultural conservation, bioenergy, rural development, domestic nutrition assistance, foreign food aid, and research.