Nigar Choudhury
Word count 1365
Corn monoculture should be stopped in the United States.
There are many kinds of food production systems in the world. Monoculture is one of the major practices in the United States. The term monoculture means the practice of one kind of crop growing in a large area year after year. Now, the question arises, why monoculture is practiced in the United States so much. The answer is that the main food crop of the United States is corn. That is why one third of the calories in the average American’s diet come from processed corn. In the modern agriculture, corn monoculture is cheap and profitable. Since it is cheap, corn has become an ingredient of almost all food products in the grocery. Corn is sweet and high in starch. From consuming too much products, people in the United States are getting obese and suffering Type 2 diabetes. Also, due to monoculture, soil degradation and use of herbicides loosen land’s natural fertility. As a result, using of excess pesticides ultimately affect the human health. Because of government’s lack of guidelines, corns become the key ingredient of all food. Corn is being burned for making ethanol. As a result, greenhouse gas emission increases. To eliminate health problems and keep the lands natural fertility, I strongly believe that corn monoculture as practiced in the United States should be stopped.
Corn monoculture and effects on the soil
Continuous growing same type of crops such as corn causes soil degradation and requires the increased use of pesticides. Putting excessive nitrogen in the land destroys the normal nutrient capacity; the soil loosens resistance, and immunities in the pest increase. To control certain weeds and species, farmers use chemicals on the soil. This process continues every term that they grow corn. As a result, the surface layers of the soil become more alkaline and because of rain and wind, this soil eventually leaches away its soluble nutrients. Soil began to suffer desertification and heavy erosion. The best example is the Dust Bowl of 1930s. At that year, the entire southern area was affected by heavy storm. Tons of topsoil were blown off barren fields and carried in storm clouds for hundreds of miles. The driest region of the plains- southeastern Colorado, southwestern Kansas, and the panhandles of Oklahoma and Texas became known as Dust Bowl because of many dust storms started there. .Many people may argue that herbicides kill the weeds and chemical fertilizer promote soil’s nutrition and fasten the crops growth. However, in “Perilous Pesticide Resistance” Stephanie Seybert shows that “some of the herbicides such as glyphosate are very toxic to soil life, reducing the number of beneficial microorganisms, nitrogen-fixing bacteria, and earthworms” (“Leu”). On the other hand, crop rotation may do not have much productivity they maintain soils organic matter and farmers can grow variety of food crops at the same time. Crop rotation is the practice of growing different kinds of food crops. They do not need same kind of nitrogen and pesticide use as monoculture farming does. Therefore, the crop rotation is the way of eliminating soil degradation and use of chemicals in the land.
Corn monoculture and human health
In terms of continuous corn monoculture, the markets are full of corn products, which cause people to become obese and suffer with diabetes. Corn has high fructose that is starch, which is not good for human health. In the supermarket or grocery, if you look carefully, you will see almost every shelf is filled with corn made product. It is in the medicine, soda, cereal, chips, and cookies. Michael Pollen the writer of the New York Times Magazine and the professor of journalism at the University of California, in his article “History of Food Policy” says, “I think as a society, that you cannot have a healthy population without a healthy diet”. As the corn is most abundant, people-having diabetes is at the basis of epidemic. School students become obese because they eat corn mixed junk food from the vending machine and from their school lunch. If there is crop rotation practices in the U. S. A the supermarkets will not be as flooded with starchy foods on shelves now. People’s health would be safe.
Ethanol causes greenhouse gas emissions
In addition, continual growing of corn results in a corn ethanol program mandates by congress in the early years of this century. “Those mandates have led to a flood of capital investment in the corn ethanol sector. America now has about 200 corn distilleries, built at a cost of more than $15 billion that will be capable of producing some $13.75 billion gallons of corn ethanol per year”(Food, Inc. p.93). This business creates many problems such as air pollution, water pollution, and green house gas emissions. In February 2008, science magazine published a study that found that when accounting for land-use changes, corn ethanol production “nearly doubles greenhouse emissions over 30 years and increases greenhouse gases for 167 years? (Food, Inc. p.100). From this evidence, we can clarify that corn monoculture practice is undoubtedly responsible for creating these problems.
Example of crop rotation
Moreover, China is a nation that has high demand for agricultural products, the economics of farming, population growth, and limited amount and quality of land. Despite they have all these limitations; they are almost completely self sufficient for applying multiple cropping systems. The multiple cropping systems include interplanting of shade crops in between raws of the main crop, sequence cropping, following one crop immediately with another cropping, where different crops are planted at the same time in the same field but harvested at different times(Food and Agriculture, Organization of the UN, 1980, p.13).

Although these methods still have high fertilizer requirements but the truth is that they can be met by organic fertilizers. Additionally, the U.S. does not have the sane soil limitation as China has, nor does it has the extreme demand for agricultural products that China has, so these methods can be use in a less intensive way. Such a system would still move away from growing just one crop in a field, would not have the soil exposed and would encourage recycling of organic material rather than the use of chemical fertilizers.
The governments role
Interestingly, politics play a big role maintaining monoculture in the United States. Government wants the most profitable and cheapest way to serve the population. Therefore, they make a budget for farmers called farm bill subsidy. According to the SanFrancisco Chronicle, Carolyn Lochhead says in her article “Farm Bill Kills Farming”, “the subsidies are tied to production. The more you grow the more you get” (editorial;pg.b7;Washington insight). What does that mean? If you think seriously, you will get the answer. And yes that’s the reason for corn monoculture. Let explain briefly. People need food to survive and meat, poultry, and dairy are the foods for survival besides corn. In the livestock, farm owners need food for animals to raise them quickly with less cost for food. So they target on the corn. Now most animals are corn fed instead of grass. Farm owners do not care about what cows should be fed by naturally. They do not even have time to think about it because they are busy with thinking how the animals grow faster and how much crops they are yielding. Quality is not a matter for them while quantity is important. Their business is how much subsidy they are accumulating by increasing productivity. In order to serve population, government takes an easy plan that is corn which is cheapest to grow, cheapest to buy and highest in calories. Government takes taxes from us and gives this money back to farmers as subsidy. They do not spend their reserve money.
In conclusion, the Government “Serve” us by spending our money foolishly. We spend money to live healthy. We want safe food and safe life. For this, government should make changes with growing crops. They must give up the practice of corn monoculture in order to maintain the soils potential and keep people healthy. In addition, I would say that America’s consumer society; large corporations are the one who can make changes by demanding diversified agricultural products.

Work Cited

Bryce, Robert. “The Ethanol Scam: Burning Food to Make Motor Fuel”. Food Inc. ed. Karl Weber. New York: PublicAffairs, 2009. 91-94. print.

“Environmental effects on herbicide use.” Science Enclycopedia.net industries.2009.web.18 May 2010.

Farabee, Mike. “The Biosphere and Mass Extinctions.” Estrella Mountain Community College. 2010.Web. 28 May 2010.

“Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.” United Nations Publishing. 1980. 13. Print.

“GM Crops Increase Pesticide Use.” Annie Appleseed Project 4 Oct. 2009.: n.pag. Web. 26 May 2010.

Leu, Andru. “Monosanto’s Toxic Herbicide Glyphosate: A review of its Health and Environmental Effects.” Organic consumers association. (15 May 2007):Print.

Lochhead, Carolyn. “Farm Bill Kills Farming.” The San Francisco Chronicle.LexisNexusAcademic(2002): n. pag.Web.20 May 2010.

Pollan, Michael. “History of Food Policy.” New York Times.n.pag.Web.29 April2010.

Pollan, Michael. Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. New York: Penguin Press,2006.Print.

“Corn Field.”Google Image.Web.26 May 2010.

What have learned from doing a research paper.

Before doing a research paper, I had a wrong idea that doing a research paper was a very complicated. I didn’t have any idea how to do a research paper? Yeah, it is complicated if anybody do not know the process of doing it. When my Prof .teaches us the techniques, it becomes easier to me. Process involves:
The more you search the more information you will get.
Read your topic both positive side and negative side.
If you support positive side and you are getting negative information more, do not worry, still you will gain knowledge and will be able to write. You can make counter argument.
You can find information from e-books by searching Google books and Amazon. Com. find scholarly articles from Academic search complete and Lexis Nexus Academic For me doing a research paper is a great experience. I know how to write a work cite page and how to write a bibliography. These are a enormous achievement which will help me rest of my study life. Everything I mentioned above is new for me. Finally my expression is I am very happy to do the research paper and also very happy to get a very nice and helpful Prof.

counter argument

Corn monoculture is highly subsidized by the U.S.Government in order to provide food for world hungers. However,by supplying huge corn products in the world people getting many health problems such as diebeties and heart diseases etc.

Super Size Me

The movie” Super Size me” documented by Morgan Spurlock is a real example of American people who eat fast food too much and become obese. By watching the movie I become to know that one hundred million people of U.S.A are overweight. Americans are very much fond of fast food and every four in one people go to the fast food restaurant especially in McDonald’s everyday. The McDonald has run its business all over the world and in the United States; it is contributing forty three percent of total fast food markets. In the school lunch, you see all fast food like potato fries, fried chicken and fried rice, burger, pitzza, sandwiches. All the students know very well the cartoon of MacDonald’s. They do not know even the Jesus.

Trough this movie, Spurlock shows us by taking an experiment on himself that eating fast is bad for health. Showing that if a person takes his or her meal like fast food continuously a month what the consequences will be? For his 30 day’s of experiment, he ate nothing but MacDonald’s and the consequences were terrible. He gained nearly 25lbs and his body fat increases about 11 to 18%. In addition, his cholesterol level increases 165 to 270. His liver became fatty and he lost sex drive. American children are growing up with fast food bearing knowledge because of huge fast food advertises in the television. Fast food industry spend 1.4 billion dollar for advertisement where fruits and Vegetables Company spend 2 million dollar.

The most heartbreaking scene in this movie is two girls become overweight because of eating fast food. And other example of this movie is the school boy was crazy for McDonald’s. These examples show that how Americans are influenced by eating fast food.
He pointed out the medical problems which are life threatening. Hypertension, breast cancer, nausea, chest pain, high cholesterol, gestational problem etc. are common health problems for obese people.
In conclusion, this movie is representation of the problem of eating fast food. People should understand that taste is not the main thing. We have to choosy about food for being healthy.

Revision Plan

Dear prof. Mcormick,
How are you? I wish you have a wonderful weekend. I passed a busy weekend because my only daughter is turned into a year and i had a birthday party in my home.Anyway, in my research paper(corn monoculture should be stopped),i should talk a little about benifits of polyculture and disadvantages of GM food which i didn't talked before.Also, i should work on work cited page. Maybe i will find a little more info about corn monoculture while working on my research.I wish i will be able to show my best work in the final draft and get an A plus on my research. i would like to give you a big. big.. big... thanks because of teaching us an unique subject "FOOD" . We wre learning so many hidden facts.We are now realize what is good and what is bad about food.I made a list for myself about food titled "Avoid and Take" and hang it on my bedroom,s wall beside a calander.i will apply my knowledge about this to my daughter so that she grow up by eating healthy food. Hopefully,we will be able to learn a lot about food in the rest of the semister.
Sincerely,
Nigar Choudhury