Maized and Confused

King Corn asks serious questions about big agribusiness.

by Sam Adams

In the Thanksgiving story, American indians gave the pilgrims corn to nourish them through their first harsh winter. But as Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis found out when they decided to spend a season growing an acre of corn in rural Iowa, the stuff that American farmers grow today bears as much resemblance to the colorful, protein-rich maize of 1620 as a Thanksgiving turkey does to a Whopper with Cheese.

In Aaron Woolf's documentary King Corn, clean-cut Yale grads Cheney and Ellis set up shop in the tiny town of Greene, which turns out to have been home to both of their great-grandfathers. Agriculture has long since passed out of their line. When a farmer takes them out to show them the land they'll be farming, practically the first words out of their mouths are, "How big is an acre?"

While tending to their tiny plot — about eight rows of corn — Cheney and Ellis wend their way through the maze of modern agribusiness. For the average farmer, they learn, raising corn would be a money loser if not for government subsidies; for their acre, King Corn's duo receive a total of $28, half at planting and half at harvest. Using heavy-duty equipment, they plant 31,000 seeds in less than 18 minutes, with an anticipated yield five times what the same land would have produced in the days before ammonium nitrate fertilizer.

The downside is that the corn they produce is functionally inedible, at least for humans; grabbing ears fresh off the stalk, Ellis and Cheney grimace as they gnaw on what tastes, depending on which one you ask, either like chalk or sawdust. This corn is made to be processed into high fructose syrup or fed to beef cows who would die if not slaughtered due to its low nutritional content. The cows may grow bigger faster, but what they produce, according to one observer, is "fat disguised as meat."

King Corn has its share of slow food experts, like Michael Pollan, who argue that modern megafarming has turned a staple foodstuff into a cornerstone of American's obesity epidemic. But the movie often seems stuck at an introductory level, so it's good that the Bryn Mawr Film Institute's screening, co-sponsored by Slow Food Philadelphia, will be followed by a panel discussion with representatives from the Fair Food Project, the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture and Whole Foods, as well as macrobiotic TV chef Christina Pirello. Enjoy — just skip the popcorn and soda.

(s_adams@citypaper.net)

King Corn Tue., April 29, 7 p.m. Bryn Mawr Film Institute, 824 W. Lancaster Ave., Bryn Mawr, 610-527-9898, brynmawrfilm.org, $4.50-$9.25