Corn Fed

In true blogging tradition, my first dynamic post is on something I know nothing about – farm subsidies. This is not an anti-farm subsidy post. I understand that in general we use farm subsidies to prop-up domestic production and to guard against the impacts of natural disasters on farmers. What I don’t understand is how we settled on which crops are being subsidized vs. the crops that are not being subsidized.

The vast majority of crop subsidies go to a handful of crops. Corn is the king of the subsidized crops, with wheat and cotton coming in second and third.

However, the subsidy system has been designed to actively discourage the farmers it subsidizes from growing non-commodity crops, such as fruits and vegetables that you might expect from a truck farm.

These subsidies have an impact on what foods we consume. The more corn is subsidized, the more corn will be produced and consumed. If you grab a meal at McDonalds you are consuming a lot of corn based products . The pop is likely sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup, the potatoes are likely fried in corn based oil, and nearly all the beef in the burgers and all of the chicken come from corn fed animals. Even the buns have corn syrup in them as a sweetener.

Maybe we would be better off subsidizing fresh fruits and vegetables. Then everything at McDonalds might be made out of Brussels sprouts, spinach, and apples instead. It might be better for you, and for your cat.
Jim
P.S. I am not planning on all food all the time posts.