I’ve heard it at least once a day since I’ve been here: corn is king or, similarly, king corn. I learned about it in school, but I always thought it was just a catchy title for a social studies chapter. Here, it’s a reality.

After a long day of lots of talk about corn, I really think I understand the issues better. The Dupont Pioneer plant was interesting, especially with all of the robots. I didn’t understand the science behind a lot of it, and it raised a lot of questions that I didn’t want to ask because I wanted an answer from an unbiased source (our smiley tour guide would not fit that bill). I feel more confident in my opinion now that GMOs are scary, and I would like more research done on the long term effects before I want them on my plate.

Iowa Corn was also very informative about current issues farmers are interested in, especially ethanol and the farm bill. Talking about ethanol was especially interesting considering my personal experience with it. Everyone around here talks about ethanol like its amazing and a great gas source. At home, on the contrary, everyone hates it, including me. It ruins gas mileage (I go from 16 mpg to around 14 mpg) and I wind up spending way more on E85 than regular gas (and my truck is a gas guzzler). It was interesting to hear another perspective, but it was really hard for me to connect to what they were saying.

The thing I like the most is what Natalina said about conventional versus organic farming. She said that they didn’t have to be pitted against each other and that it was possible, even helpful, for them to live in harmony. For the first time ever, I heard that it was a good thing to have both conventional factory farming and small organic farming. I really liked her opinions on choice and how important options are to us as Americans. Out of all of the things that we talked about today, this is what really stuck with me and left me feeling like I took something away from all of the discussions.