It takes a lot to get the public’s attention and even harder to hold on to it. The corn crop failure in the Midwest may be hard to ignore. On average food travels 1500 miles to get to the consumer. Even with an active locavore movement (those favoring food grown locally) in our region it amounts to a small fraction of the food required to feed the millions who live in the metropolitan area. Corn has so infiltrated the US food system that a failure in this crucial crop will inevitably impact the price of beef, dairy products, soda products and virtually all processed foods.

Here’s where the annual US corn crop goes in an average year – one-third goes for feedstock, cattle, pigs, chickens, etc; 13% is exported, much of it for feedstock as well; a massive 40% of the corn crop goes to produce ethanol. The remainder of the corn crop goes for food and beverage production, that is, a mere 14%. (Note – it takes seven pounds of grain to make one pound of meat.

Even though Congress is not supportive of the ethanol program the Farm Lobby is sufficiently powerful to keep the ethanol industry alive, even though it takes nearly a gallon of fossil fuel to make a gallon of ethanol while generating a substantial amount of pollution in the process. In spite of claims to the contrary, corn based ethanol, or any bio-fuel for that matter, can in no way be considered an answer to this country’s dependence on foreign oil. Now that we will suffer a serious crop failure this season the very notion of tying up 40% of the corn crop to ethanol production is stunning.

Who will lose out in the coming short fall? Cattle are already being slaughtered or sold off ahead of schedule because of the lack of food or its high cost. Is it even possible to reduce the amount of corn designated for the ethanol industry given the government’s commitment to this industry? Stay tuned, folks. This is a drama that has just begun to play out. It really comes down to food or fuel.

An even stickier question is whether so much of the grain harvest should be devoted to supporting an American diet heavily dependent on meat, by any measure, not a healthy one- Sadly, the American diet is becoming ever more popular in the developing economies in spite of the high cost of producing it. Cattle are naturally grass-fed animals. Agribusiness has upended the natural order in pursuit of greater turn-over and higher profits. There is a high cost to messing around with nature – unhealthy cows, more disease, requiring heavy use of antibiotics to address the disturbance in the natural cycle.

Meanwhile, weather is becoming ever more erratic and we need to consider the possibility that the poor crop we have this summer may become more like the average crop for the future.