Today we read and heard about the Green Revolution which I briefly mentioned in my post yesterday. I was actually a bit mistaken, and the first Green Revolution was in Latin America (wheat) and Asia (rice). Our book by Paarlberg was clearly geared more pro-Green Revolution, but still put forward the arguments that paint the Green Revolution in a rather dim light. Going to the World Food Prize, however, treated Borlaug and the Green Revolution as near heroic acts that saved billions. The revolution certainly produced more food and reduced hunger, but some of the underlying principles had issues and the gain in food was not earned without giving up something.

My first and only real exposure to Borlaug was in sustainability, and it was not a significant explanation. He was a man who developed seed varieties that require inputs of water and nitrogen, but produce significantly more per acre. He also did his best to spread these and food itself to developing countries and won the Nobel peace prize for his work. My exposure was primarily his theory that more yield would occur per acre so the amount of agricultural land in use would decrease and price of food would fall. This idea failed, since the yield increased and price decreased, but the amount of land has continued to increase. Borlaug did do a lot and helped improve the amount of food available worldwide, but by relying on such things as pesticides and high inputs we put ourselves into a delicate situation of changing the system for food and risking other things along the way.

Nitrogen runoff is the one everyone talks about. Nitrogen is sprayed into fields to get the corn to grow well, but sometimes either at a bad time when it can’t be well absorbed or more than the soil/plant can absorb. Although the book doesn’t fully explain the problems associated with, sustainability courses have. 1. The nitrogen will wash away either on the surface or in groundwater until a lake or the ocean, in either case causing massive ocean plant growth for the same reasons it causes corn to grow. This makes an algal bloom.

Algae grows much faster than fish numbers so nothing eats all of it, then the algae dies and uses up some oxygen in the process. With the huge amount of algae dying, it actually makes the water oxygen limited or devoid of oxygen so fish and most species can’t live in it, which is why they are called dead zones (the majority of the Gulf of Mexico being the most notorious one). 2. Some nitrogen doesn’t wash off, but instead evaporates and this is a problem because it’s a GHG 300 times as potent as CO2. Given that (and many other issues involved such as larger farms instead of many small ones) shows that the green revolution had its issues. Combine these with the social issues that were caused in some areas where the Green Revolution occurred (greater inequity and social disparity problems) and no one can say that it was a perfect change. The World Food Prize definitely made it seem so while the book acknowledged there are issues about this method.

Today we went to visit the World Food Prize Hall of Laureates in Des Moines. What used to be the public library in Des Moines has been renovated to serve as the Hall of Laureates to the World Food Prize. The World Food Prize was established by Norman Borlaug, who was a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and wanted to establish a different award that specifically rewarded innovation in food. While touring the Hall, we learned about the World Food Prize, which I discovered was in line with the types of ideas that surround conventional agriculture. The World Food Prize rewards innovators who are able to find ways to grow larger quantities of food to feed more people. Therefore many of the winners of the Prize are involved with genetic modification of foods. Robert Paarlberg, who wrote Food Politics, seems to be in agreement with those behind the World Food Prize, in that he believes that conventional agriculture is the correct way to do agriculture to grow increased yields from crops. In one chapter in his book, he outlines the Green Revolution, which was led by Norman Borlaug, and ultimately decides that it was what needed to happen given the increasing world population. While he does recognize some problems that the Green Revolution caused and continues to cause, he says that without it, there would be many more starving people in the world and a much smaller food supply. While I understand the argument behind the idea that there needs to be innovation in agriculture (that may mean genetic modification) to feed a growing population, how far will we go to keep feeding our parasitism on this earth? Maybe the fact that we are having to genetically modify the food that the earth gives us to survive should be a warning that we are growing too much as a species and consuming too much. This definitely is not my final stance on things, but it is just a thought that I am considering at the moment.

The Crew: Farmers In Training (FIT)

When you begin to spend a significant amount of time looking into Iowa’s agricultural history it is not long before you run into the name Norman Borlaug. Considering how much of a big deal Borlaug is in the agriculture world I at first felt bad that I did not recognize his name. Today we went to the World Food Prize Museum which honors the winners of the World Food Prize, of which Borlaug is one of the most known partly because he is an Iowan. The building that the exhibit was in was just as interesting as the topic because it was an old public library that was far more elaborate and ostentatious than any library I’ve ever seen. I found it interesting that over 25 million dollars went to create a museum that memorialized people who had worked to solve world hunger and aid those in poverty.

Restored historic building’s stained-glass ceiling

Exterior view of the historic building that houses World Food Prize Museum

Norman Borlaug is known to his supporters as working towards ending world hunger by creating a more productive breed of seed and introducing it to impoverished areas. His supporters, such as the World Food Prize folks consider him a hero. This is apparent from a quote on the wall when you walk into the World Food Prize laureate hall that credits Borlaug with saving more lives than anyone else. Before this visit I was more familiar with the controversies surrounding Borlaug’s work, particularly the Green Revolution, without knowing he was the man responsible for these developments. Paarlberg in “Food Politics” provides an overview of these controversies and helped me to begin to see both sides of the story.

While it is indisputable that the seeds Borlaug developed significantly increased yields and allowed more people to have access to affordable food than ever before, it seems unwise to not take into account the consequences. These include environmental damage from pesticides, fertilizers, and water run-off, as well as reduced biodiversity all of which are damaging to the land and unsustainable in the long-term. Paarlberg seems to consider these consequences to be preferable to the alternative, in which many regions total environmental degradation would have been the only option in a scramble to avoid massive famines. However, I do not think this a good enough justification for the continued practice of Green Revolution type agriculture if it is having all these negative impacts. I would be interested to learn more about alternative models such as the agroecology Paarlberg mentions in his book.

Since arriving in Iowa the most distinct impression I have is of vast stretches of farmland which are home to corn, and some soy, crops. Before I got to Iowa, while I knew about the prevalence of corn, I assumed that a place considered to provide a large amount of the food supply would have to grow more than just corn. My skepticism at this only grew when we went to one of the leading GMO seed producers, Dupont Pioneer, and they gave one of their founding principles as being “feeding the world”. This feeding the world theme was continued by the Iowa Corn Growers Association. They presented increasing the supply and demand for corn as being the solution to all our problems. I found this hard to digest in light of the knowledge that edible sweet corn only accounts for 1% of corn production and the rest is inedible before being processed. My next question was where does this seemingly useless crop go? The ICGA answered that of course the corn is being used to feed more livestock (hence “feeding the world”), exports, and ethanol.

I do not buy that corn is good for advancing the cause of “feeding the world.” I understand that the argument many proponents of corn domination of Iowa agriculture make is how perfect the Iowa soil is for corn yields. However, just because it works does not mean it is right or ideal. First of all, it seems inefficient to allocate such large amounts of land in to feed livestock that take up even more land and consume a huge amount of resources to produce food for humans far less than they end up consuming. It seems far more logical that if “feeding the world”, rather than making the most money, was the goal the land would be used to grow something actually directly edible such as a grain, starch, or even produce. After seeing yesterday how successful Dalona’s fruit trees and other garden yields have been (partly thanks to Iowa soil) it seems that other crops could fare just as well as corn.

Of course the numerous other uses that have been found for corn must also be taken into consideration. These include various biodegradable plastics, corn strarch and high-fructose corn syrup, and most notably ethanol. I found the ICGA representatives discussion of Ethanol to be extremely interesting. There seemed to be much conflict of interest between oil companies and corn/ethanol producers centering around, not surprisingly, profits. Except the difference is of course the environmental impact of ethanol use over oil. Considering the current various environmental crises we face anything that could potentially alleviate these concerns must be taken seriously. Ethanol seems to have the potential to do a lot of good to reduce CO2 and GHG emissions, although Dr. HN later pointed out that some information/perspectives had been left out of the presentation concerning the energy it takes to produce ethanol. After adding ethanol into the equation it becomes somewhat more difficult for me to take a strong position on the current rates of corn production. But I still think I can say that I remain highly skeptical of  the long-term effects this sort of exclusivist agriculture, particularly in the midwest, will have.

I was excited to go to Iowa Corn and DuPont Pioneer Seed Company today because corn is by far the most prominent crop in Iowa, and I wanted to learn more about it. One thing that really bothered me while the representatives were speaking to us is how much they referred to the corn industry as bearing the large burden of feeding the world. While the corn industry does feed a lot of people all over the world, especially in the United States, the representatives were making it seem like they do what they do mainly because they wish to feed the world, and that the reason they do not choose other alternatives is that everyone would not get fed. I think it’s ridiculous to suggest that any of these large scale agricultural operations are not first and foremost motivated by profit. There may be those who work for the companies that are concerned with feeding the population, but the companies don’t tend to want to begin feeding the world until they are paid for their product.

Also, watching King Corn was a nice change of pace after hearing from two separate groups that are definitely supporters of large scale corn farming. While I had some qualms regarding large scale corn production prior to watching the film, it really put the corn industry in Iowa into perspective, pointing out some of the negative aspects of the industry. For one, the reminder of how much corn goes into feeding livestock, even though livestock such as cows are supposed to eat grass and not corn, made me proud to be vegan. It was really alarming how much corn is in the processed foods all over America. Farmers, who are traditionally thought of as self-sustaining individuals, can not even live off of the food they grow in Iowa, because in many cases all they grow is the field corn that cannot be used for immediate consumption.

Today was all about corn.  We first went to the Dupont Pioneer campus in Des Moines to explore the research side of corn and its products.  Dupont Pioneer is the combination of the Dupont chemical company (known even in Aiken, SC) and the Pioneer seed company.  It is the largest producer of hybrid seeds in the U.S., and it is so successful because this merger and many like it are able to produce seeds and research new genomes all under one roof.  There, we were able to tour the genomic marker lab, the plant transformation lab, and the greenhouses.  Essentially, this order covered the basic research sequence of 1) mapping out the DNA of samples and finding the locations of specific traits, 2) manually modifying the gene sequence then injecting it into the plant DNA, and 3) finally growing the new plant.  Due to security concerns, we weren’t allowed to take photos outside of the visitor’s area.  Sorry.

The next part of the day was devoted to the politics surrounding corn.  We were treated to three different presentations by representatives of the Iowa Corn Promotion Board ( in charge of education, promotion, and research) and the Iowa Corn Growers Association (the lobbying arm), collectively known as “Iowa Corn.”  Having a degree in political science, this was kind of more up my alley than the technical aspect of crop research. Here, we found out how this organization advances corn interests by helping the corn farmers, promoting positive images, finding new markets, and defend/defeat relevant legislation, especially the Farm Bill.  Combined with watching the documentary King Corn, we learned how a single crop is grown and spread all around the world.

At the headquarters of Iowa Corn (Promotion Board and Corn Growers Association).

This was the reason why I went on this trip.  I wanted to gain a general grasp of the food system in the U.S. and around the world, i.e. how an ear of corn moves from the farmer’s field to being split into numerous other uses.  It was interesting to see in King Corn how much corn has been grown and inserted into our food system and to combine that with what I now know about the Iowa Corn Growers.  Corn has grown to be a massive crop, and the corn lobby undoubtedly played a part in strengthening the industry, especially after the rise in demand of ethanol.  The largest products from field corn include ethanol, livestock feed, and high fructose corn syrup.  The latter two have essentially made it extremely cheap to produce many foods in America.  Combined with the GMOs advocated by Dupont Pioneer, it is now easier to produce a high yielding and durable crops.   Regarding the food issue, I am not the biggest fan of high fructose corn syrup or the forced feeding of large amounts of corn products to livestock.  Yet it is still a hard judgement call to decide how much I think we should crack down on the unnecessary empty calories of the corn-saturated American diet.  As of now, a vast number of food contains HFCS, and stamping down on its use would increase prices.  Perhaps we should wait until a healthier alternative comes into play or perhaps we should bite the bullet and go for it.  Either way, there are many and powerful voices that will have a say in the issue.

Our “theater.”

Post King Corn watching party.

Today we went to the World Food Prize Hall of Laureates. Our tour guide made sure we knew every detail about everything in that museum. It did take a very long time, but it was very informative. I cannot believe that I had never heard of Norman Borlaug before even though he is one of seven (two other two being Ellie Weisel and Martin Luther King Jr.) to earn the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Gold Congressional Medal, and the Nobel Peace Prize.

The chapter we read in  Robert Paarlberg’s book was really helpful in forming my opinion about the Green Revolution. It was very obvious that the World Food Prize organization had a positive view of the Green Revolution since its main guy was the brain behind it, but Paarlberg made it a little less obvious. He provided both arguments, but it seemed like he leaned on the side of agreeing with it. He provided lots of statistics that supported his point while undercutting those who reject it.

My favorite part of the museum today was the hall of Howard Buffet’s photography. The pictures were striking and really held my attention. Seeing how people from other countries really had to work for their food humbled me. Many of the children were skinny, even emaciated. My favorite was the picture was the one of the girl from Bangladesh with the scarf over her head. Her eyes were beautiful and reminded me of the girl in National Geographic. They looked so distrustful, though, and maybe hurt, but curious. I love eyes. I’m probably reading too much into it, but that wouldn’t be unusual for me.

Women make up 75-80% of the world’s farmers!

My favorite is the girl with the scarf over her head and pretty eyes

May 19:

DuPont Pioneer is where the day began for us this Monday morning. The tour guide enlightened us on the company’s three main goals, food, energy, and protection, and all that goes into accomplishing these goals. DuPont is a leading seed production company, and it has invested time and money into GMOs or genetically modified organisms. They begin by looking into the plants DNA, specifically the phenotype to locate certain marker genes that carry certain characteristics within the DNA. Once these markers are found they can experiment with modifying different plants to find which will be the best of the best.  In areas like drought resistance, a seed called Aqua-Max for example, has been developed. It is amazing how far they have come in this research given that in 1926, little was known about DNA. With this Aqua-Max line of crops they have balanced the obstacles perfectly, being that the corn survives in drought, but also in perfect conditions where water is plentiful. This is a huge breakthrough because it works so well in both conditions. Usually, it is one or the other. How they get to the final product however, takes years. It begins with the seeds and continues through greenhouses and then into the fields. Numerous tests are done in each location before they take the product to market. The science behind this is baffling at how it all works but some how it does and DuPont has figured it out for both the U.S. and the counties they modify seeds for to export to. They have many facilities around the world ensuring the seeds are adapted to those different environmental factors. There are some people that are against GMOs, but I do not really see the problem with them. If you can get the most out of the crop by making it insect resistant and drought resistant, why wouldn’t you? I get that the argument against them is people want their food all natural, but if the food isn’t harming the health in any way that we can tell, and is making the farmer the most benefit, why not use it? We have to think about the farmer. If they aren’t using these GMOs and drought or bugs are getting to their crops, they are going to lose money. GMOs to me seem like the best option all around for the farmer as well as the consumer.

Instead of focusing our attention on GMOs, I believe we should be putting our efforts into better treatment of animals specifically in the food aspect. Get them eating less corn and more grass. Also, on the food side of things we need to direct our attention to consuming less high fructose corn syrup in attempt to lower the diabetes statistics and over-all better our health as a nation. Corn has taken over in our diet, and as a result we are the most obese generation so far. We eat more fat in food due to the cows eating corn and our sodas accompanying them with the high amounts of corn syrup in them. I do not see why time or effort would be spent on GMOs posing no direct threats when corn is directly harming us and animals.

P.S. Finally made a coke slushy work today, Adam’s 1st attempt did not work, however his second one was successful. He also admitted he could not lift his part of the rock from yesterday, so it was a successful day all in all.

I think compared to my essays before this I’m going to be a bit brief oddly enough because far too much happened to explain it all so I’m going to focus on just the one thing that stood out most to me between DuPont Pioneer seed company and the Corn Growers Association meeting. Of course my science leads me away from the more political and frustrating/confusing information we got from the Iowa Corn Growers Association and toward the hard sciences from seed engineering. I’ve heard about GMOs for a while, and didn’t really know much about the varieties that can be made and how inaccurate it is to lump all of them together as one entity. First of all, we learned that these companies still use old hybridization methods too; in fact, they’re usually quicker from research to market since theirs a whole lot less regulation. This method would be growing plants with different genetics and breeding the two together to get the best of both worlds (theoretically), but with the added science of looking at the DNA level to make sure that you understand your plant. We know enough about genetics to know some key genes that affect properties and can see what those are in the plants that are hybridized so even non-visible traits like water efficiency can be achieved (Duponts new AQUAmax fits this bill).

GMOs are a short cut in a sense that takes a normal plant embryo and forces the desired gene in there. Surprisingly they can literally force it in with a pressure based gun… But they more frequently use bacteria that ordinarily break DNA to cause diseases for the job. It just involves modifying the bacteria to insert the desired genes instead of inserting their disease genes (sounds scary but it’s more common than you’d think, we do the same to get a lot of pharmaceutical materials. Why make it when you can trick nature to do it safely for a fraction the cost). Then you have a plant with the desired gene, but where that gene came from can be widely different. What it’s for also causes complications because one gene is to allow the plant to incorporate a small amount of pesticide within it so we don’t have to spray as much (not hypothetical scenarios here) and another one makes the plant produce more vitamins to combat malnourishment in the third world (golden rice) and yet another one lets the plant tolerate even more herbicide so we can spray harsher chemicals for weeds. Those are all very different scenarios and different ethical battles that you can decide whether you believe justify GMOs. Additionally some GMOs don’t actually insert anything, they just change what the natural DNA does; soy for example has been made to not express 1 or 2 genes so that they no longer produce trans fats. They didn’t add anything, they just “turned off” a gene. Some genes that are added are from the same plant (corn to corn), and some come from another source in nature (bacteria to corn). These take much longer to hit the market since they require extensive testing for safety and allergens, but are a bit more genetically precise. Clearly after all that you can’t really say all GMOs are one bad or good entity and you certainly can’t say seed companies making them are purely bad for doing so since they’re also making hybrid varieties. It’s all based on what the market demands. My personal views on GMOs was that they’re understood and created in a controlled environment, produce good results, but may have some long term issues for health or the environment that just haven’t yet been tested for by my knowledge. It’s a shortcut and a direct change to a natural product, both of which usually come with some cost. More importantly to me is that you and I likely eat GMOs often and just don’t know because they still don’t need labeling at all in the US. I don’t know and didn’t hear much about why not, but I find that something I personally find concerning. Far more so the fact that these seeds are usually patented and sterile, and I have heard of court cases against farmers for GMOs they didn’t buy, ending up in their field. Being sterile just means farmers have to buy the seed each year, which creates an issue if they become the norm in the developing world (as it would legitimately increase crop yields dramatically) where most farmers couldn’t afford to buy them. This is referred to as the 2nd green revolution, the first being our move to high input, high yield, large scale farming to the developing world. These issues are far more important ethical concerns to me at least than the actual act of modifying an organism’s genes directly and something I wish I heard more about, but certainly feel would have either been a big argument or would have been an inappropriate thing to bring up in their company.

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.