As seen above, most of our corn is consumed nearly invisibly.  In Mexico, however, corn, along with beans and chiles, forms the historical basis of the national diet and is intimately wedded to national identity.  Tamales, tlacoyos, chilaquiles, tortillas, tacos, nachos, quesadillas—all central supports of the Mexican diet, yesterday and today—are made from corn.  Modern-day Mexico has a corn problem too, though, and it’s resolutely not invisible. 

For reasons way too complicated to really flesh out here (but having a great deal to do with, among other causes, NAFTA, the $25 billion subsidies we give to American corn farmers, and the upsurge in corn prices due to the flabbergasting demand for ethanol), corn imported from the U.S. now dominates the Mexican market, affecting the 18 million Mexicans who rely on corn for their livelihood.  In her interesting HuffPo article on how the Mexican immigration problem relates to corn, Sally Kohn notes that one out of three tortillas is now made with imported maize, and that an estimated two million farmers who can’t compete with subsidized U.S. corn have been driven from their land.  According to her, the price of a tortilla in Mexico has gone up 278 percent since NAFTA.  Who’s to blame, then, for the waves of Mexicans flooding our country looking for work?

Perhaps slashing corn subsidies and also corn production will not only do the U.S. a lot of good—it will make it a bit easier for Mexicans to make a living as farmers again. 

p.s. I like what Ken Meter has to say about federal policies that might support a shift from nitrogen-fertilized mass production to actual sensible food production: 1.) stop the ridiculous ethanol subsidies, 2.) replace commodity payments with price supports, and 3.) reinvest in local infrastructure.