King Corn Case Study

1. Two impacts that mechanization has had on “family farms” is that it increases production speed and that it lowers the amount of people needed to farm larger and larger areas of land.

2. If farmers hadn’t have used genetically modified crops then there would have been severe food shortages.

3. Colorado is able to have so many feedlots of cattle because it has a lot of corn to feed to the cows and a lot of land for the cows to live on.

4. Corn has become much less nutritious and is used in just about every processed food, making its way into us in many different forms

5. The natural quality of corn has decreased immensely since its increased production rate. Corn has now become selectively bred to be full of starch in order to be made into sugar.

B:

        The biggest benefit to having cheap food is fairly obvious. If food is cheap, then everyone is able to provide food for themselves. With only 10% of income being used on food, Americans will have a lot of money to spend on other essential things such as clothing and housing. Even with these other necessary items, there will still be a lot of money to spend on things you want, rather than need. Americans will be happier because of this.

        Some drawbacks of having cheap food available is that the food produced will surely not be the healthiest - for humans or the environment. As in the movie, corn and other products have been selectively bred in order to get the most out of them that is possible - thus decreasing their overall healthiness. The rapid growth of crops causes depletion of much of the soil and other resources necessary in order to grow the crops.

The people that truly pay for the cost of food is the farmers and the people. The farmers have a much lower quality of life because their farms have to produce a lot more, with less reward. They are unable to support themselves with their farm. People also pay because it is much less healthy for them to eat this food now. So, it is not necessarily a monetary payment that we have to make in order to have cheap food.