What’s So Bad About Corn?
Posted: November 27, 2007
A Washington Post reporter asked the musical question “What’s So Bad About Corn?” in an article that features Iowa Corn Growers Association president Tim Recker and Iowa Corn Promotion Board chairman Julius Schaaf.
“I got 225-bushel corn that I’m doing right now, which is phenomenal,” Recker said by cellphone from a field near the town of Arlington. That’s 225 bushels per acre. For a corn farmer, that’s living in the tall cotton.
And yet, despite the fabulous harvest and the boom in ethanol made from corn, corn farmers often sound beleaguered and aggrieved. Corn, they say, has been getting a bad rap.
“You have to wear a flak jacket,” said Bill Couser, who farms 5,000 acres here in the central Iowa town of Nevada (pronounced ne-VAY-da). “When we planted this crop, people said we were the villains of the world.”
The article, which talks about the criticisms leveled against both corn and corn ethanol, does a pretty good job of presenting both sides of the issue.
“The thing about ethanol: It’s not a perfect solution for our energy, but it’s a pretty good one. You don’t throw out the good in search of the perfect,” said Julius Schaaf, who farms 4,000 acres in Randolph, Iowa, and is chairman of the Iowa Corn Promotion Board.