How corn syrup wrecks the rain forest

By James Werrell - jwerrell@heraldonline.com

You may have seen the weird little TV ad where a sugar cube is being interrogated about why Americans are so obese. The sugar cube fingers high fructose corn syrup.

But the interrogator doesn't buy it. He scolds the sugar cube, telling him that calories are the same, whether they come from sugar or corn syrup. This message, of course, is brought to you by friends of the corn industry.

This ad and others have been launched to fight a proposal now circulating in Congress to raise taxes on soft drinks. Proponents say a tax on high-calorie soft drinks would bring in needed revenues and discourage consumption, thus reducing one of the prime contributors to obesity.

Opponents say the tax would be just another burden on hard-pressed Americans during tough economic times. And, they say, soft drinks are no more a contributor to obesity than a variety of other foods.

The issue of whether high fructose corn syrup, the sweetener of choice in soft drinks and myriad other foods, is worse for us than sugar and other �empty� calories is in dispute. But there is a larger and more important question: Why is the U.S. government still subsidizing corn production?

The primary reason the soft drink industry and food producers use so much corn syrup as a sweetener is because it's cheap. Why is it cheap? Because the federal government has placed quotas and tariffs on cane and beet sugar, raising the cost of sugar, while giving subsidies to corn growers, lowering the cost of high fructose corn syrup.

Over the past 12 years, U.S. taxpayers have spent nearly $50 billion on corn subsidies, making it the top crop for federal assistance. Nearly 100 million acres of U.S. crop land now are planted in corn.

Of the approximately $11 billion a year the nation now spends on corn subsidies, 15 percent goes to the production of ethanol, alcohol distilled from corn, which is blended with gasoline as fuel. Despite the inefficiency of producing ethanol, it receives the lion's share of federal funding compared to other forms of renewable energy such as solar, wind and geothermal.

Corn is a high-maintenance crop, requiring the application of billions of pounds of fertilizer. That contributes mightily to the high-nitrogen fertilizer runoff that ends up in our lakes and rivers, increasing algae and other undesirable growth.

The high rate of U.S. corn production also has international implications. Here's one you might not be aware of: Destruction of the Amazonian rainforest.

While the United States is the world's largest producer of soybeans, many soy farmers have switched to corn to be eligible for federal subsidies. U.S. corn production has risen nearly 20 percent since 2006, while soy farming fell by 15 percent.

The decrease in U.S. soy production has caused a global spike in soy prices. As a result, farmers in Brazil, the world's second-largest soy producer, are clearing acres of rain forest to plant soybeans and build roads to transport them. Brazilian farmers also are buying cattle ranches for land to plant more soy, forcing ranchers to clear more of the rain forest to graze their cattle.

And deforestation ultimately contributes to global warming, not to mention the destruction of habitat for untold numbers of species.

The average American consumes about 63 pounds of high fructose corn syrup a year (along with nearly 60 pounds of sugar). The reason we find so much corn syrup in nearly every packaged food or beverage we consume is because it's cheap.

But, in the end, we pay an extremely high price for cheap high fructose corn syrup in the form of subsidies for farmers, high rates of obesity and the destruction of the environment.

We should be asking ourselves if that's really such a sweet deal.