Corn Gravy

The ripple effects of the president's enthusiasm for corn-based ethanol are beginning to be felt. For starters, as Michael Rosenwald writes in the Washington Post, "The corn price increases flow like gravy down the food chain," to everything from meat and dairy to soda and cookies -- meat and dairy because of the importance of corn as fodder, and soda and cookies because of the prevalence of corn syrup as a sweetener. With corn prices having doubled, the prices for these corn-dependent products inevitably go up as well -- at least until farmers start producing to a level that meets or exceeds demand, in which case prices could again level off.

But there's more. In converting acreage to corn, American farmers are moving away from other major crops, like soy, which has the benefit of fixing nitrogen in the soil. Corn, by contrast, demands copious amounts of nitrogen fertilizer, which has a tendency to run off into streams and rivers, triggering oxygen-depleted dead zones, like the one which forms annually in the Gulf of Mexico. Experts fear that the corn boom will greatly exacerbate the problem.

It's not inevitable, however. As this item in American Agriculturalist notes, the 2007 Farm Bill offers an opportunity to encourage farmers to exercise "greater precision in fertilizer use, wetlands restoration, production of perennial crops such as switchgrass, and other conservation innovations." The item also notes that, "While Corn Belt watersheds account for less than nine percent of the land that drains into the Mississippi, land in these watersheds contribute about one-third of the nitrogen reaching the Gulf." A smart policy would focus efforts there.