Molecule of the Day

Chemists will recognize the N-N moiety as a hydrazine, some nasty stuff (and 1,1-dimethylhydrazine is a hydrolysis product of this stuff). Back in the late '80's, there was a huge cancer scare about this stuff - and farmers were spraying it all over our fruit. It's regarded as many corners as an overblown food scare, but some insist that this was the beginning of a slippery slope towards food libel laws (the basis for Texas ranchers suing Oprah Winfrey for saying she was done with beef during her mad cow episode).

US food policy (any food policy, but I'm in the US) is tricky because it cuts through everything - everyone buys food, but the poorest people spend about five times as much as the richest as a proportion of their income on food. Food is relatively cheap here, which is probably a desirable thing in the previously mentioned respect. Agricultural subsidies are confusing in America - owning certain land can entitle you to some of them, even if all you do is file certain forms.

Corn is king in American agriculture. We grow staggering amounts of corn: 10 billion bushels a year, give or take a few billion (a bushel of corn weighs 56 pounds). So 500 billion pounds of corn. Nearly a ton for each American.

Corn is everywhere, whether as a feedstock for animals, high-fructose corn syrup, or ethanol. (You can eat it plain, too).

Ethanol, perversely, is part of why you're paying so much for milk lately. Ethanol, then, is part of why your Starbucks is increasing in price.

Look a little closer at that table and notice that certain midwestern states are absurdly overrepresented. How much corn does each Iowan get? ~2B bushels from IA, so about 100B pounds. About 3 million Iowans. Over 15 tons per person!

It is worth learning something about agriculture - not necessarily in the buy-organic-food-and-eat-local-slow-food sense (although it's worth reading up on as well, with some healthy skepticism), but in the farming and agribusiness sense. GM crops, anhydrous ammonia, and growth regulators aside, It is pretty humbling to think of the fact that America makes a half-trillion pounds of one plant on our lil' plot of dirt every year.

US Ag policies are being decided (for the next half-decade or so) right now. Page through the House bill and see if you can guess the chemical I'm tackling Monday!