Abstract
The United States is currently the world’s largest producer, consumer, and exporter of corn. The concentrated cultivation of corn within the U.S. Corn Belt produces a third of the world’s corn. This intensive cultivation, has resulted from a number of resource inputs, namely land conversion, irrigation, and agrochemicals. The current corn management practices have been detrimental to the air, land, and water, and in turn resulted in increased nitrous oxide emissions, soil acidification, loss of carbon sequestration, and eutrophication. This thesis has two principle aims. Firstly, to compile and asses the historic and current practices of land use, water use, fertilizer use, and pesticide use within the U.S. Corn Belt. Secondly, to project global corn production to the year 2050 based on growing demand for livestock and ethanol, as well as the land, water, fertilizer, and pesticide input this will require. The following two facets of this thesis will be used to frame the argument that our current corn-dependent food systems and energy systems are fundamentally unsustainable, and have resulted in a “hungry-production system”.