Corn, the Corn Belt & Colonialism
Somehow, Ohio has become inextricably linked to corn in our national imaginary. Rife with amber waves of grain, a whole state constituting fields. Flat. Endless fields of corn, that’s how people tend to imagine Ohio. It doesn’t help that one of our most common license plates features a picturesque red barn, silo, and cornfield. But let it be known, the world’s largest (only) corn palace is located in South Dakota! As an Ohioan, corn and my state’s relationship to the crop has become a rather touchy subject. I try to spread awareness to non-Ohioans about the exciting diversity of our state that extends far beyond corn: we have both urban hubs (Columbus, Cleveland, Cincinnati, the tri-Cs) and a National Park (Cuyahoga Valley National Park); we abut a Great Lake in the north and a river in the south; we are home to the third largest university in the country (Ohio State University) and also to the second largest rollercoaster in the world (the Top Thrill Dragster, found at Cedar Point). We do not deserve to be a flyover state, I insist to friends, some of whom I have to direct to Ohio on a map, after they hazard an initial guess at the state’s location, pointing to Georgia. I have purchased a sweatshirt emblazoned with the phrase “Ohio against the world,” and feel the resonance of this statement every time I stand up for my oft bashed state.
The word corn actually means a region’s most important cereal crop. Zea mays, or maize, is ours, the conflation of the two words proof of its place at the heart of our country and culture. The act of tracing the history of corn in America has helped me to make sense of our current overreliance on and overproduction of the crop.
Corn is so deeply yet invisibly embedded in our society, with origins in the colonial era both fueling and explaining its ubiquity now. Early American colonists first shunned corn, having assumed Europe’s cultural disdain for the crop that was considered inferior to wheat and rye, associated with indigenous groups and animal feed. When wheat and rye harvests proved meager, however, colonists, lacking agricultural know-how, were forced to rely more heavily on corn. They learned cultivation techniques from indigenous allies and, at times, would barter for or steal corn from indigenous farmers. Katharina Vester explains this transition from rejection to reliance in her book A Taste of Power: Food and American Identities. She writes, “Initially, corn was also unloved in the colonies: European settlers coveted wheat and other European grains for their social cachet, but had to make do with corn, as it could be reliably raised in the new environment.” Her narration of the story of corn in America tracks the eventual bestowal of democratic ideals, emancipatory qualities, and symbolic perseverance onto corn, new associations that ultimately rendered the food patriotic rather than “savage,” justifying its widespread incorporation into the American diet. During the revolutionary era, Americans turned corn into a symbol of determination against British rule, effectively co-opting the cultural stigma Europeans had assigned it. The colonists owe their lives to corn, for their survival and “subsequent transformation into conquerors of this new land would have been impossible without corn.” Once spurned, corn became the central feature of pioneer agriculture, allowing colonists to extend their settlements.
The westward movement of colonists facilitated the westward movement of corn, with the crop’s path mimicking (and spurring) national conquest. Michael Pollan labels corn a colonizer of the land, and other scholars make similar accusations of corn as a conqueror, sweeping across the U.S. in the same fashion as the empire. A desire for more farmland drove colonizers west, and the small farms they established most often hosted corn. Over time, the expanding frontier has consistently maintained a “corn belt on its outer fringes,” describes Nancy Westrate in Corn and Capitalism. Even today, Corn growth continues to push the western bounds of its range, with a study from 2012 documenting the Corn Belt’s expansion in North and South Dakota and Nebraska.
Corn’s high yield appealed to colonists, and retains its appeal now, affording corn government subsidies and general ubiquity. Maize also boasts a comparatively quick growth rate and adaptability to many environments, furthering its attractiveness in the agricultural scene. The onset of fertilizers and advanced plowing capabilities have propelled the crop from the colonial era to its current state of success, with the U.S. Corn Belt recognized as one of the “most economical, and highest-yielding farming regions in the world.” Corn production in the Midwest has seen a threefold increase since 1939, an impressive figure attributable to machines like “grain combines, anhydrous ammonia tanks, herbicide sprayers, center-pivot irrigation machines, gas-fired grain dryers, high-horsepower tractors, and trains of 100-ton grain hopper cars.” Such technological advances prompted farmers to extend their acreage, with farms increasing in size while simultaneously decreasing in number. Whereas 90% of colonists worked in agriculture around 1776, half of Americans farmed come 1870, and only a third of the country held jobs in agriculture by 1910. Farmers now comprise less than 2% of the general population in the U.S. The author of Making the Corn Belt encapsulates the divergent pattern in his analysis of the situation: “farmers have left the land in droves, but those who remained have produced even more than before…
“...The 75% decline in middle-western farm residents between 1920 and the present was accompanied by a 1,300% increase in the region’s corn crop.”
These numbers point to the concurrent loss of farmers alongside increasing output of corn.
Higher rates of corn production come too as a result of government subsidization, which, in turn, has stimulated previously inconceivable uses for corn. Livestock have always subsisted on a corn-based diet, and now even farm-raised salmon are fed corn. Though John Hudson in Making the Corn Belt claims that “the essence of Corn Belt agriculture is the practice of fattening hogs and beef cattle on corn,” its purpose has expanded far beyond feeding and fattening livestock, with corn as a source of flour and oil, the coloring in processed foods, a sweetener for soda and other users of corn syrup. Of the 45,000 goods shelved in the average American grocery store, over a quarter contain corn. And now corn makes up non-food items like furniture, and is used in the creation of linoleum and fiberglass. Most recently, corn has been transformed into fuel, making corn-derived ethanol the primary reason for the ever-increasing dedication of U.S. land to corn. Michael Pollan characterizes ethanol as
“...the latest chapter in a long, sorry history of clever and profitable schemes to dispose of surplus corn: there was corn liquor in the 19th century; feedlot meat starting in the 1950’s and, since 1980, high fructose corn syrup.”
He chalks this diversity up to government subsidies incentivizing farmers to grow corn and lobbies promoting corn consumption. The unprecedented role of corn in so many products can be explained, at least in part, by the governmental subsidization of corn crops, like President Bush’s $190 billion farm subsidy. Further corroboration of the connection, researchers matched a period of immense growth in corn production—with acreage dedicated to corn increasing by 21.3% between the years 2006 and 2007—to a subsidy for ethanol during the same period.
Corn has overtaken U.S. cropland as it has come to dominate the economy, meaning that the cropland itself has usurped natural landscapes. Consequently, corn prices have been found to be a predictor of land cover/land use change, with the Corn Belt quickly and predictably encroaching on grasslands. The Western Corn Belt is responsible for the conversion of over 99% of tallgrass prairie to farms, with net losses amounting to an estimated 1.3 million acres between 2006 and 2011. The Corn Belt, also called “the corn-soybean desert” and an “ecological sacrifice zone,” mass-produces corn at the expense of the environment. One study finds rates of habitat loss comparable to the more notorious deforestation happening in Brazil, Malaysia, and Indonesia, land that was likewise converted for agricultural purposes.
In terms of its environmental impact, aside from habitat degradation, corn also requires extreme fertilizer input, causing nutrient loading and pesticide exposure. Corn has come to require more pesticide application than any other food crop, with more than half of synthetic nitrogen applied to corn. Corn’s reliance on fossil fuels concerns many scholars, who see a need to change corn farming practices to ensure agricultural resilience and sustainability in an era of impending climate change. The way we currently grow corn both contributes to and is susceptible to global warming, a positive feedback loop that is clearly untenable.
