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The Omnivore's Dilemma Book Review

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The Omnivore’s Dilemma is a non-fiction book that discusses the relationship between the food and our daily life. Michael Pollan, the author of this book, points out the advantages and disadvantages of subsidy on corn. Given the corn is one of the major crops in our daily life, there are lots of corn’s by-products in the supermarket, even the nonfood items. Some people believe corn is a miracle crop because they are impressed by the wide-ranged of corn products; On the other hand, some people think the expansion of corn industry leads to social, environmental, and economic problems. In Pollan’s view, he questions about the outcomes of the subsidy and believes it creates different negative problems to the society. He mentions that …show more content…

The farms are apt to adopt the monoculture in order to maximize profits. Under the mono farming method, the major environment threat is vanishing species. Pollan takes George Naylor’s farm as an example to illustrate the noticeable ecological change under corn subsidy. George’s farm used to be diverse and practiced crop rotation farming method. However, the situation changed from the 1950s, farmers accepted government subsidies to grow corn. They practice specialization and brought tractors in order to boost the crop yields. It effectively increases the crop yield and encourages farmers to grow more. However, the specialization leads to the monoculture. And, the persistent of monoculture eventually leads to the loss of biodiversity. “A case can be made that the corn plant’s population explosion on places like Iowa us responsible for pushing out not only other plants but the animals and finally the people, too”(Pollan 38). The economic temptation encourages the practice of monoculture instead of running a diverse farm. Species are forced to leave and clear the land for corn plantation. However, biodiversity is vital for sustainable development because every livestock and crops are completing the food chain. The vanishing species, caused by subsidy on corn, provoke the imbalance of ecosystem and environmental crisis, like global warming. Eventually, it affects the whole city, or even the

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