The industrial farming of corn in the US requires using hybrid corn strains to reach the yields it has, which in turn requires the use of fertilizers because the natural soils is incapable of sustaining the density of corn plants that hybrid varieties achive.
Those fertilizers in turn are mainly made from oil, which is a non-renewable resource, making the whole thing unsustainible. It’s is possible to make the fertilizers sustainably, it’s just much more expensive so that’s not done.
A lot of the reason why the US is so deeply involved (including outright military invasions) in the Middle East from where most of the oil comes is because in the US oil it’s not just a critical resource for Transportation and Energy, it’s also a critical resource for food.
Bertuccio@lemmy.world 7 months ago
On indirect consumption, corn is largely used to feed cattle, make high fructose corn syrup, and other products that are not directly eaten as corn.
This makes corn insanely inefficient as a food source.
Aceticon@lemmy.world 7 months ago
There is a book called The Omnivore’s Dilemma which is a great read on this.
MonkeMischief@lemmy.today 7 months ago
But for now my PLA 3D printer filament is still cheap! Yay? =\ lol…why is everything so broken…
Kingofthezyx@lemm.ee 7 months ago
Greed
MonkeMischief@lemmy.today 7 months ago
I mean…yeah. I was more lamenting rhetorically. 😅