Back to School and Corn Colorado

August, to me, is reminiscent of heading back to school…and corn.

Back to school because it's the time of the year that schools in the Midwest reopen, and corn because I hail from Iowa — the "Tall Corn State."

This marks the first August in four years that I won't be headed back to school myself. Each of the previous four years I was enrolled as a part-time student at New York University, completing work on a bachelor of arts degree in humanities with a concentration in media studies.

I am proud to say that I completed that degree and graduated magna cum laude in early May. Finally, what seems like the "world's longest senior year in college" has come to an end.

The Iowa corn fields always come to mind when I think about school, though. Each of those 13 years of kindergarten through high school in Grand Junction and then the following four years as a student at Drake University in Des Moines were spent in Iowa.

August in Iowa is a blend of steamy, green fields with a touch of impending fall. The haze hangs on the corn in the daytime yet the evening gets cooler as the month distances itself from the July heat and crawls toward the crispness of September.

While corn is a visual concept that evokes memories and reminiscences of a long-ago childhood, it also brings confusion over how certain varieties of corn are used. The reaction in Europe to biogenetic or genetically modified foods—and the lack of reaction in the United States--has always left me pondering "do they know more than we do?" or are they actually just a bit clueless about how the levels of modification in modern foodstuffs.

I grew up in an area of the corn belt known for its hybrid seed corns. And just when I think the vagaries of basic agriculture are over my head (I grew up as a "town kid," not on a farm) and that modern agribusiness is a scientific field that I have absolutely no expertise in, I realize a vast majority of Americans today have had limited exposure to any type of agriculture.

So, let me share what I remember about hybrid seed corns. Well, first, they are modified!

I got a firsthand look at hybrid seed corns that last summer before enrolling at Drake. I worked on a "destasseling" crew for YW Hybrids, our local seed corn plant. It was the messiest, most unpleasant experience of my life. A contraption that was some sort of revamped tractor with seats, or perches, extending on either side would traverse six or eight rows of corn at a time and—as I recall—the detasselers would yank said tassels off the corn. Imagine eight hours or more of that each day. Again, my expertise in "agri-growing" is limited, but apparently yanking off this tassel helped or somehow enhanced or interfered with the reproductive process of the corn plants themselves.

It was a messy business. Dank, dark caverns of sharp, unbending green leaves that cut and scratched. Mud, bugs, heat…well you get the picture.

But the hybridization (of which I was a party to) of the seed corn was the process to develop "seed"—the corn that was then put in the ground in upcoming planting seasons. That same seed corn became the vast majority of the corn grown to feed beef cattle and other farm critters.

So, Americans (and Europeans) biting into a tasty Omaha steak were very much eating a piece of beef that had been modified right from the git-go. And I was there helping along that modifying process.

Well, let's fast forward past all that drama and dialogue over the last 10 years about GMOs and "frankenfood" and the ensuing direction of organic foods, which my guess has tempered a lot of the hand-wringing over food modification, and take another look at corn from a different perspective--corn as fuel.

The ethanol plant business is growing in Iowa. I talked to my 81-year-old father the other day and he confirmed what I've been seeing and hearing about the ethanol boom in the Heartland. Many plants are planned or currently being built in the state of Iowa, on top of those already in existence.

The demand for cheaper energy sources is clearly evident. Consumers are being pinched at both the gas pump and for all the goods and services that are absorbing price increases to make up for the higher fuel costs in transporting those goods.

Ethanol-based fuel is promoted as a step toward weaning us away from foreign oil dependence. Yet there could be a disturbing underside to this new boom in corn-based ethanol production. According to the New York Times, ethanol production is expected to increase from the current level of 4 billion gallons to more than 7 billion gallons by 2012.

Last year, corn production topped 11 billion bushels, which was second only to the record harvest of 2004. Yet even 11 billion bushels won't be enough to provide the corn needed for both ethanol and food production. One economic forecaster predicts a "food fight" will develop between the livestock industry and the ethanol industry in the middle of 2007. Because of the growing demand for corn—complicated by the limited supply—that will push the price of corn over $3 a bushel.

At that point, the American consumer will see rising food prices. And for food companies, that could spell trouble.