The corn is gone from downtown Los
Angeles. The harvest was the last event in a nine month project
known as Not A Cornfield, which involved planting 32 acres of
corn in a former railyard brownfield near Chinatown known generally
over the years, for some reason, as the Cornfields. "Not
A Cornfield" was conceived by the artist Lauren
Bon, as an artwork, or, more accurately, as a nexus for a network
of converging activities, events, lectures, screenings, and artforms.
The land, between the LA River and Downtown, is scheduled to
become a state park. In the meantime, for less than a year, "Not
A Cornfield LLC" took over the space, starting in the summer
of 2005. The project brought in hundreds of truckloads of dirt
to lay on top of the brownfield ground, then formed furrows,
lined with irrigation pipe, and planted corn.
While the corn grew from July to November, "Not A Cornfield" became
a social space, free and open to the public, with scheduled and
unscheduled activities. Films were screened, talks and discussions
were presented, music was performed, and people caroused, in
clearings in the corn, and at the construction trailer (and yurt)
compound at the entrance to the site. A central path, cut through
the middle of the oblong field, enabled visitors to walk through
a corridor of corn for nearly half a mile, towards the silhouetted
downtown skyline.
As the corn aged, dried, and turned brown, it was like a Halloween
maize maze in January. Openings and new paths were cut into the
fields, some resembling crop circles. Some stalks were grouped
into bushels, or "shocks," to help define large,
circular galleries for events, and elaborate lighting was installed
that mirrored constellations during the winter solstice.The corn
was picked, and an estimated 137,694 ears of corn were hung on
the fence along the commuter rail tracks.
When it was time to clear the field, a John Deere 9660 combine
came in and mowed the field down, churning up the stalks into
mulch that was raked, baled, and used to construct a monument,
known unofficially as "corn-henge." The ears of dried
corn were also fed into the machine and the decobbed kernels
were decanted from the combine's hopper into large bins,
then sifted, and bagged for distribution as seed corn to homeless
shelters, community gardens, and correctional facilities.
While it is sad to see this unusual and dramatic physical and
social artwork gone, it led us to ponder the larger ideas of
corn in our lives, and in America. . . |
| |
Portions of this essay were presented at the
Getty Museum in Los Angeles, as part of a public discussion about
the Not A Cornfield project, given by Matthew Coolidge, of the
CLUI, on a panel with artist Lauren Bon, and critic/curator Ralph
Rugoff, on October 5, 2005.
The American Landscape of Corn
The Lower 48 states of the USA is 1.9 billion acres in size.
Of that, about 30% (600 million acres) is forested, another 30%
(580 million acres) is grassland and rangeland used by cattle
and such. 10% is called "nonproductive," from
an agricultural point of view, places like wetlands and deserts. 20% is cropland
(450 million acres). On this, corn is America's largest crop, covering
81.6 million acres, about one quarter of all crops, an amount that adds up
to about 4% of the land cover of the Lower 48. This is about the same amount
of land that is urbanized/suburbanized. This is also almost half of the world's
production of corn.
80% of the corn produced in the USA goes to feed livestock,
especially cows. The American livestock industry is the largest
global consumer of corn, but 15-20% of our corn is exported to
other countries, like Japan, where it feeds Japanese cows.
The biggest corn processor in the world is the Archer Daniels
Midland corporation, headquartered in Decatur, Illinois. They
have 205 manufacturing facilities worldwide, 13,000 railcars,
1,200 trucks, and over 2,000 river barges (said to be the largest
fleet in the world) for moving their product around. Three distinct
plants operate at the Decatur complex, connected to each other
by pipelines. The East Plant at Decatur is probably the largest
corn products factory in the world. It processes corn at a rate
of 600,000 bushels a day. What's a bushel? 4 pecks. And
a unit of volume, 1.2 cubic feet, about 35 liters. A semi tractor
truck can carry 920 bushels.
Though the fuel additive ethanol has recently surpassed high
fructose corn syrup as the largest non animal-feed use of corn,
the largest direct consumption of corn by humans in the USA is
by ingesting corn syrup. High fructose corn syrup is found in
numerous processed food products in the United States, where,
unlike in other countries, due to the economy of large scale
industrial production by companies like ADM, it is a less expensive
sweetener than other sugars, like cane and beet. The vast majority
of corn syrup is not eaten, but drunk in the form of soda pop,
of which 12 billion gallons are consumed every year in the United
States. The average American drinks 15 fluid ounces of soda a
day, with about 14 teaspoons of corn syrup in it. A 48 oz "big
gulp" has a full cup of corn syrup. It adds up to about
70 pounds of corn syrup per person per year.
The largest supplier of corn syrup sweetened drinks is the Coca-Cola
Company of Atlanta, with over 40% of the nation's carbonated
soft drink market. Their biggest product, Coke Classic, is still
the most consumed sweetened carbonated beverage in America. Coke's
other brands include Sprite, Minute Maid and Nestea. Not far
behind, with just over 30% of the market, is PepsiCo, headquartered
in Purchase, New York, up the river from Manhattan. In addition
to the cola rival Pepsi, the company owns Mountain Dew, Slice,
the Sobe drink line, Gatorade, and Tropicana (there is a lot
of sweetener in orange juice too).
Corn as solid, human food comes mostly in the form of corn chip
snacks. About a billion bags of tortilla and tostada snacks are
sold each year, as part of a $2 billion corn chip industry. The
Frito-Lay brand dominates the industry, with 80% of the market
share. Frito-Lay, headquartered in Plano, Texas, was formed by
a merger of Elmer Doolin's "Frito" fried corn
snack company and Herman Lay's potato chip company, in
1961. Based in Nashville, Lay's company grew by purchasing
production plants and distribution networks in the southeast,
consolidating what was generally a regional industry of small
local producers. By 1956, it was the largest potato chip company
in the country, but even so, it had just over 1,000 employees.
Lay was the exclusive distributor of the Frito snack, the primary
product of Doolin's Frito Company, since 1945. As Lay's
distribution network grew, so too did the popularity of Fritos.
Following the 1961 merger, the company expanded its network to
cover the whole nation.
Frito-Lay owns the three most popular corn chip brands in the
country, Fritos, Doritos and Tostitos. They also own Rold Gold
pretzels, Lays potato chips, Ruffles, Funyons, and Cheetos. The
company operates hundreds of distribution centers and dozens
of plants across the country, where they manufacture most of
these products together. Frito- Lay is consolidating their production,
movong more activity to their largest and most technologically
advanced plants, including those at Lynchburg, Virginia; Bakersfield,
California; Fayetteville, Tennessee; and Jonesboro, Arkansas;
as well as at some older, but high-performing plants in Killingly,
Connecticut; and Perry, Georgia. Currently, Frito- Lay's
plant at Frankfort, Indiana is the largest "salty snacks
plant" in the world.
Notably, since 1965, Frito-Lay has been owned by PepsiCo. Nothing
makes you thirsty like a cornchip. |
