Corn is the 800 pound gorilla of U.S. agriculture. It essentially runs amok. If you have read Michael Pollan’s book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, you know something about this. King Corn is the video counterpart to Mr. Pollan’s corn story.

The government subsidizes corn production for the extraordinary benefit of the snack food, fast food, and beverage industries. Taxpayers, in effect, make possible the 99 cent hamburger.

This video tells the story of Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis who decide to grow an acre of corn in Iowa in order to learn about the life cycle—both natural and economic—of corn. Bear in mind this is not edible sweet corn, this is industrial corn, suitable primarily for making high-fructose corn syrup. High-fructose corn syrup is an ingredient in a stunning variety of foods and food-like concoctions. If you are a label reader you know this well enough.

We should all be well informed about the place of corn in our world for several reasons:

• Tax payers subsidize big business by paying part of the cost of growing corn
• High-fructose corn syrup is empty calories, and Americans are increasingly overweight
• Our prime farm land is being used to grow an inedible crop with no nutritional value
• In an incredible act of cruelty, we feed corn to beef cattle who are sickened by it

It is important that citizens, and particularly voters, understand how farm subsidies for corn distort our economy and our ecology.

I highly recommend this video as part of that education.

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