After numerous recommendations, I recently had the chance to watch the 2007 documentary King Corn. The movie begins when two men from Boston analyze their hair (which is essentially a “tape recorder of diet”), only to discover one primary food: corn. At this point, they set out to grow an acre of corn in Iowa. Of course, the credits reveal that the filmmakers were heavily inspired by Michael Pollan (who I mention often, author of In Defense of Food and The Omnivores Dilemma), so I doubt the corn discovery was much of a surprise to them.
If you aren’t aware of the domineering role corn has played in our food system for the last 30 years, this movie is indeed a great eye opener. Government corn subsidies pave the way to a massive overproduction of corn, one that continues to escalate each year. Yes, farmers all over America are actually selling corn for less than it costs to grow. The profit? Well, according to this New York Times article:
“The government spent $41.9 billion on corn subsidies from 1995 to 2004″
Thank God for subsidies right?
Well, as you can imagine, the corn needs to go somewhere. It becomes feed for cattle, who cannot properly digest it. It becomes sweeteners, especially high fructose corn syrup, now our leading source of calories. It is processed into nearly 3/4 of all products in the supermarket.
Surprisingly though, the movie does not feel as though directed by an anti-corn agenda. A short segment of the movie even takes a nearly final cut back to Iowa, where the locals begrudgingly admit to King Corn’s unbiased approach.
People who already know the ins and outs of our corn problems won’t learn much (and sadly, those are the people most likely to watch it), but others are sure to walk away wiser, and disturbed. A sense of pending disaster permeates the movie. How much longer can we sustain this unrelenting overproduction of corn? The less diverse our food supply becomes, the more susceptible we are to crop failure (potato famine anyone?) as well as disease caused by poor nutrition habits.
I have heard several people admitting that while they liked King Corn, it was slow. In retrospect, it’s true. There isn’t a ton of action, but nonetheless, it kept me entertained even though I fell into the “I already knew most of this” camp. So action junkies and people who can’t stand documentaries should probably take a pass, even though it’s critical that our corn problems rise to the surface of the national consciousness.
This corn problem is a heavy stone that has been rolling downhill for quite sometime, one that gets steeper and faster each year. This problem will get worse before it gets better. And even then, who wants to step in front of a giant, speeding boulder?
King Corn is available on Netflix (though sadly the downloadable version is a mess…the audio and video are so out of sync that it is unwatachable), so watch it and report back in the comments below. Who else has seen King Corn? What did you think?
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