Cornholio

Saw a free screening of King Corn the other night at St. John's Theater. The place was packed and people were being turned away as the place reached over capacity. Curt Ellis co-writer of the film was also in attendance to speak afterwards for a panel discussion along with the Pres. of New Seasons, Guy from the Oregon Food Bank and Sauvie Island Organics as well as a local organic farmer from the Clac. The film was well done as far as documentaries and far better then the last documentary I watched. King Corn is about two friends who decide to grow an acre of corn in a small Iowa town and see where there corn ends up. They go into detail with only two products of corn; animal feed and corn syrup. I thought they could have spent some time going into Ethanol production as well but perhaps that is another documentary in the making.

Now I already new most things they brought up about corn production and animal feed when I am working in the ag industry. One thing I didn't know which was disturbing to me was that continually feeding cattle corn makes them sick that is one of the reasons why they give cattle antibiotics. In fact the feed lots have it down so precisely by the time the cow gets the fatal nail in the head they would have died anyway soon from there diet of corn. Grass fed nuf said.

In one scene they actually pull a couple ears from there field and take a bite. The look of disgust after they tasted it reminded me of the time when I was ten years old I was in Minnesota staying for a few days with my then step moms family on there family farm. There was corn everywhere and I had a hankering for an ear of corn. So one day I snuck off not wanting to be seen stealing there corn (like they would miss an ear) I remember going through these woods and on the other side there was another huge field of corn so I went in and selected an ear based on my knowledge from picking corn from our own small field (maybe ten rows) back home. I husked it back and took a bite and about gagged. I had no idea there was corn other then sweet corn we grew back home. I tried a few more ears just to be sure yup they all tasted like dried turds. I went back to the farm house confused on why they grew all this inedible stuff. They later informed me that they grew it strictly to feed there hogs. So it is pretty amazing to me when I am in Iowa or other states in the corn belt that there growing all of this corn and none of it is edible without processing or feeding it to animals.

The panel discussion after the movie was not as lively as I thought it would be but I stuck around anway to here what they had to say. If you want to check out the film PBS will be airing it on April 15th.