GEO 102 Assignment #3 | The Global Food System and Corn | Diana Xia Zeng | Teacher: Blake Mayberry11/11/2011 |
The Global Food System and Corn Agriculture is a major industry in the United States, which is a net exporter of food. Corn, turkeys, tomatoes, potatoes, peanuts, and sunflower seeds are the main holdovers from the agricultural endowment of the Americas. [1] The availability of inexpensive land with favorable soil and climate contributed to the growth of cotton during the nineteenth century; and strong legal and political institutions provided enslaved labor force and led to an unprecedented cotton boom. As a result, the United States produced more cotton than all other countries combined in the 1830s, and the value of cotton exports exceeded the value of all other American exports put together. Before the Civil War, most of the really rich men in America were southerners, and most of those were cotton planters. The cotton economy centered on slave labor thrived until the Civil War. Regularly when the slaves were liberated and cotton demand decayed, the emphasis on cotton and slavery constrained industrialization, urbanization and educational progress. [2, 3] Today, corn is the most valuable crop grown in the United States. It is the major source of biological compound energy for livestock and poultry in the United States, accounting for more than 90 percent of total production. About two-thirds of the corn grown in the United States goes into livestock feed. Americans eat about 45 pounds of corn per person per year. [5]Corn made for livestock and meat products that produce from animals raised on corn. Such as pigs, they consume almost half the corn crop. Also, Corn is used to manufacture several of very useful daily products. Corn refining separates the kernel into its parts. The basic products of refining are starch, sugar, syrup, and oil. Corn starch is used to condense puddings, gravies, and sauces. Starch is also used to produce cosmetics, explosives, electric batteries, and drugs. Ethyl alcohol, made from corn sugar or syrup, is essential ingredient in smokeless powder, shatterproof glass, synthetic rubber, brake fluids, and plastics. Another common use of corn is to make the "10% alcohol (ethanol)" gasoline that you buy at the gas station. [4, 5]
Methodology
Table 1 No. | Food Name | Location | Contain corn (byproducts) | 1 | Boneless Pork Chops | USA | Y | 2 | SHITAKI Mushroom | Japan | N | 3 | Baby Carrots | USA | N | 4 | Jasmine Rice | Thailand | N | 5 | Pork and Napa Cabbage Dumplings | USA | Y | 6 | KIMLAN Soy Sauce | Taiwan | N | 7 | GREAT VALUE Canola Oil | USA | N | 8 | PEARL RIVER BRIDGE Superior Dark Soy Sauce | CHINA | N | 9 | GREAT VALUE Pure Cane Sugar | USA | N | 10 | BAIWEITANG Starch | CHINA | Y | 11 | Robert Vitamin D Milk | USA | N | 12 | QUAKER Chewy Oatmeal Raisin | USA | N | 13 | QUAKER INSTANT OATMEAL | USA | N | 14 | NESTLE Rich Milk Chocolate | USA | Y | 15 | Ozark Farmers Market: Large Grade A Eggs | USA | Y | 16 | GREAT VALUE Low-fat Vanilla Yogurt | USA | Y | 17 | Jet-Puffed Marshmallows | USA | Y |
Table 1 lists the food that I ate in my daily life. It is not difficult to find out what was in my food. First of all, I wrote it down the name of the food and spices I often eat and use. Since I usually eat homemade food, therefore, most of them are fresh food or spices. Just a few of them are instant snacks. Secondly, I found out the ingredients of these food and spices that I use for cooking the food. Thirdly, I searched the ingredients of every product on the internet and focused on the description and label about whether there is corn and corn byproduct or not. Throughout the research, I found out those foods mostly come from the United States and 7 of 17 products contain corn or corn byproducts. In addition, I did some analysis, including the cost of a bushel of corn and the cost of
Related Documents: Essay on The Global Food System and Corn
Food Inc. was made and produced by: Robert Kenner’s, The current method of raw food production is largely a response to the growth of the fast food industry since the 1950s. The production of food overall has more drastically changed since that time than the several thousand years prior. Controlled primarily by a handful of multinational corporations, the global food production business with an emphasis on the business - has as its unwritten goals production of large quantities of food at low direct…
40’s when the McDonald’s brothers developed the idea of a fast food system. This fast food system ran the kitchen almost as though it were a factory. The burgers only cost about 15 cents, which was only half the cost of a regular burger at the time. Their fast food system was a huge success and by 1958 they had sold their 100 millionth burger. McDonalds is now one of the biggest fast food chains in the world, and big fast food chains want big suppliers. Since their success rate was very high…
February 11, 2013 Word count: 1775 Politics, Food, and corn: A recipe for change? Americans today are no strangers to stretching every dollar earned in an attempt to live the American dream. Most people work long hours and eat on the fly with very little thought to what, or where, the food they have purchased came from. The reason food is so inexpensive has not been a concern to the average American, but the article written by Michael Pollan “The Food Movement Rising” attempts to convince the people…
Franklin Bushey Research Paper Genetic Engineering Will Play a Dominant Role in Relieving the Effects of Global Warming. Among the devastating natural disasters the world has faced thus far, environmentalists are anticipating global warming to have the greatest catastrophic impact on the world. Global warming is due to greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, water vapor, nitrous oxide, and methane that trap the sun's heat in the earth's atmosphere. This phenomenon is known as the "greenhouse…
Organization (BIO), American Soybean Association (ASA) and National Corn Growers Association (NCGA), and many many more (Rees, 2006). According to Magner (2003), “There are many potential, or at least unresearched, health effects involved in GM crops and foods. There is a risk involved when genes known to be harmful to living things are inserted into consumables. This is the case for GM potatoes and other crops (particularly soy and corn). These GM crops have had inserted into their DNA a gene that produces…
considered viable means of maintaining global food supply. According to John Ikerd, Professor Emeritus, University of Missouri Columbia College of Agriculture, “As it pertains to agriculture, sustainable describes farming systems that are “capable of maintaining their productivity and usefulness to society indefinitely. Such systems... must be resource-conserving, socially supportive, commercially competitive, and environmentally sound.” By definition, food is material consisting essentially of…
several decades. During this time, automobile sales reached all time highs, but many scientists saw increased pollution of carbon dioxide in the environment taking the brunt of this increased economic success. Later on as global warming was recognized as a serious issue, many global car manufactures, especially those in Japan, sought to create ecofriendly alternatives to gasoline in cars. The Japanese, as a result, had to invest money and scientific research into the effort, which led to the idea of…
(lack of labor; people who will build, construct) Transferability ->if you are a producer of bananas, in order for you to be successful in trading bananas in the global market, the cost of transportation of the bananas to Miami costs more than a banana itself The only way the global economy can operate is if the supplies that are in the global market is if they can bear the cost of being moved ***shipping container Intervening opportunity -> migration -> los angeles and mexico -> places in between that…
Food, Inc. Is a 2008 American documentary film directed by filmmaker Robert Kenner. The film strives to analyze corporate farming in the United States, concluding that agribusiness produces food that is unhealthy in a way that is environmentally harmful and abusive of both animals and employees. 1.Discuss three reasons why has the agricultural industry consolidated. -In the 1970's the top 5 beef packers controlled only about 25% of the market and thousands of slaughterhouses produced the majority…
such as switchgrass realistic. Switchgrass produces about two times more ethanol than corn stover would. If a farmer were to continue rotating corn and soybeans on 70% of their field and produce 20% switchgrass in the remaining space and leave it for 5 years. After those 5 years, the startup time of switchgrass, add an additional 10% switchgrass and decrease corn/soybeans.. This plan of transitioning from corn/soybeans to switchgrass would not only be beneficial to the maximization of farmers profits…