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Comment by vanderZwan | Hacker News Reader

> But hey if it means farmers grow less corn then I'm all for it!

I keep hearing that - least in the US - this is more of a problem with subsidies and perverse incentives, is that true? Sincere question from a naive non-economist outsider here.

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Yes, absolutely. Corn is grown to excess for purposes of livestock feed and fuel due to various subsidies for ethanol production. At least here in the Midwest, almost none of the corn grown is for actual human consumption. Additionally, corn is an awful crop, it requires a ton of nitrogen and water to grow well. I'm very much for less of it being grown here.

corn is an awful crop

I've only been gardening a season but I've already come to the same conclusion. The corn stalks were the divas of the bed, wilting days before anything else and underproducing. Especially compared to the squash plants.

Oh dear, corn is an exceptionally terrible garden crop - a high-producing stalk gives you 2-3 ears at maximum, saps the nitrogen in the soil, and requires a ton of space. You'd need to plant a huge volume of it to get any sort of decent harvest. It's a shame, since fresh sweet corn is delicious, but it's something where I'd rather just buy some from a guy who grew a quarter acre of it as a hobby crop.

If there is ever an apocolypse leaving me dependent on personal agriculture, I’m planting nothing but squash. Until then keep it away from my backyard.

I would rethink your post-apocalyptic single-crop garden if I were you. Diversify, diversify, diversify.

If you're in the US and starting with squash, then the logical option would be:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Sisters_(agriculture)

I've found companion planting beneficial, but have had terrible luck with the corn aspect of 3-sisters. It seems best suited for warmer US zones (6+), where corn can go in the ground well before beans. Otherwise, the beans will quickly overtake the corn.

I always have some tomato cages ready as backup, because even if the corn is big enough to support the beans, a gust of wind can blow it all over.

Also, deer eat corn shoots. Damn you, deer. Damn you.

I didn't care much for squash until I discovered spaghetti squash. I'll usually find space for at least one plant now.

I love spaghetti squash! Sadly, you rarely see it in the UK. In fact, you rarely see any squash except butternut here, which i'm not a fan of.

There's a farm somewhere south of London which does pick-your-own pattypans, and apparently at harvest time is overrun with South Africans, who evidently feel very strongly about them.

I've never heard of pattypans, they look absolutely delightful! I may have to experiment with them in the garden next year.

I loved butternut squash until we grew it and generated 98248928 squashes.

That midwestern corn is unfit for direct human consumption, but it shows up as a number of filler ingredients in highly processed (junk) food. So it's in your cows and chickens, but also in every soda you drink and in your kid's breakfast cereal. And pretty much every commercial baked good (modified food starch).

And the mills smell awful. Like someone took a paper mill, and took out the sour part of the smell and replaced it with moldy gym socks.

Corn starches and the products created from them are some of the most versatile things we have in commercial food production.

It’s important to hedge your bets with the food supply, but ‘versatile’ (or even, in the case of corn, durable) isn’t the only or even the most important metric. Nutritious, efficient, healthy are important too.

Have you been to the Midwest? There are places where you can drive hundreds of miles and see almost nothing but corn and a bit of soy.

If you take the backroads you’ll find pigs, cows, a bit of alfalfa and hay, sweet corn and the odd field of popcorn. But along the interstates it’s corn, soy and more corn to the horizon.

But that's the thing, in temperate climates, nothing makes calories as well as corn. Since growers just respond to the external incentives to create ethanol and meat and everything else that's made from those calories, they are actually meeting the need in the most environmentally responsible way. Or put another way, if we were to transition to not corn, which 200 million acres of virgin habitat should we cut down?

Yes, we mandate a percentage of corn based ethanol in our gasoline, and the crop insurance system is set up for monoculture. We also don't make any attempt to price in the externalities of resource intensive industrial agriculture.

The gasoline thing isn't necessarily ridiculous. Some portion of ethanol in gas helps it burn cleaner.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygenate

It also has a lower energy density than gasoline and problems with gumming up fuel injectors, and collecting water in fuel tanks which leads to corrosion.

edit: ethanol is hygroscopic; meaning it attracts and collects water

> problems with gumming up fuel injectors, and collecting water in fuel tanks which leads to corrosion.

I'm pretty sure that these are economic benefits.

Sure, if you subscribe to the philosophy of planned obsolescence.

GDP is a very narrow and short term view of economic benefit.

Please see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_window_fallacy

I took his comment to be sarcastic, but I could be wrong.

Ah. You might be right!

I really don't understand why anyone supports ethanol. It's a poor fuel compared to gasoline and any minor improvements to fuel ignore the externalities.

It's another massive subsidy to the farming/fertilizer industry.

The EREOI of Corn as a fuel is pretty bad.

If all this subsidy money were used to instead move to EVs, it'd be better spent.

Is there another smog-reducing, ground-level-ozone-reducing gasoline additive you'd prefer instead?

Hybrids and EVs are the answer - spending billions on making gasoline additives out of foodstock is not the answer.

Immediate cessation of ICE vehicles is not realistic. The changeover will necessarily be gradual. Dumping all of the cash over to EV tech from ethanol production causes a different set of problems.

The idea was that you could reduce US dependence on foreign oil imports, and also make a positive impact on CO2 emissions (since biodiesel is CO2-neutral) by gradually switching the US over to biodiesel. Corn was an obvious choice since the US already subsidized farmers significantly to produce that crop. On paper that didn't seem terrible at the time.

Later it was noticed that the US biodiesel program had had a substantial impact on global corn prices, which probably causes deaths in developing countries[1].

I think it's widely considered to be a bad idea at this point, but as late as 2009 I can find reference to expansions in the program[2].

Completely agree that redirecting our subsidy dollars into modern tech would be a much better investment; the default should be no subsidies, and we should pick strategic investments to ensure our relevance in the coming decades.

[1]: https://www.treehugger.com/cars/us-doctors-say-biofuels-coul... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biofuel_in_the_United_States#R...

So the whole "biofuel" conflation has me confused. I know about a dozen years ago, it was a good meme, but there are big differences between ethanol vs. biodiesel [1]

Corn isn't used to make biodiesel. Also biodiesel allowed usage of existing waste product (e.g. sludge from a McDonalds) would work with biodiesel converted engines.

Luckily hybrids and EVs entered the scene and now we have zero-emission vehicles that are far more sustainable than ones using any liquid fuels.

There is no reason to push for anything but EVs and hybridized fleets everywhere. EVs are faster, less maintenance and the range issue is pretty much resolved for the vast majority of use cases. I'm frustrated when I have to drive an ICE vehicle - pickup is slow and no regenerative charging means it stops slowly as well.

[1] http://www.differencebetween.net/science/difference-between-...

Ah yep, thanks, s/biodiesel/corn ethanol spiked diesel/.

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