This is the VOA SpecialEnglish Agriculture Report.
Corn is an important crop in many parts of the world. However,some people are concerned that corn has become too important inagricultural planning and production.
Michael Pollan is an expert inplants and agriculture. He wrote a popular book called “The Botanyof Desire.” The book discusses how humans and plants have developedtogether. Mister Pollan also has spoken about the use of corn inagriculture and other industries. He says that American farmers growtoo much corn.
Recently, Mister Pollan spoke to the Christian Science Monitornewspaper. He told the newspaper that corn is popular because itgrows well with fertilizer. Today, farmers produce about six timesmore corn per hectare than farmers did one- hundred years ago. Thisis the result of new kinds of corn and the use of large amounts offertilizer.
Modern fertilizers can be made ina number of ways. Corn mostly uses fertilizer that is high innitrogen. Nitrogen fertilizer is made by combining nitrogen from theair with hydrogen from natural gas. In the United States, large oilcompanies produce the chemical base used for nitrogen fertilizer.
Researchers for the Department of Agriculture have shown thatcorn requires about eighty-nine kilograms of fertilizer per hectare.Many crops require less fertilizer. Some crops require just as much.However, corn has lower amounts of protein, vitamins and mineralsthan other crops.
Corn is used to feed cows forabout four months before they are killed for meat. The result ismeat, or beef, that is high in fat, which makes the beef tastebetter.
However, cattle do not normally eat grain. Their stomachs andintestines do not process grain well. Instead, their stomachsproduce much more acid than is normal. Mister Pollan says thiscondition permits harmful bacteria to survive and reproduce. Forthis reason, farmers must give cattle drugs to control bacteria.Also, the meat of corn-fed cattle lacks some nutrients found in themeat of cattle that eat mostly grass.
Corn has become the most important grain for feeding cattleraised for beef. Yet, some experts say it is not the best food forcattle. Next week, we will tell about other industrial uses forcorn. Some of them may be surprising.
This VOA Special English AGRICULTURE REPORT was written by MarioRitter