It meant by the one law to promote the general interest of the country, or to render corn cheap, without, perhaps, its being well understood how this was to be done.

However the adoption of free trade in mid-19th century brought cheap American corn which undersold local farmers.

The reason its titans want to keep corn cheap and plentiful, Pollan explains, is that they value it, above all, as a remarkably inexpensive industrial raw material.

That cheap corn is then bought by large farms, which feed it to animals, leading to profitable business for meat packers.

The toll on small farmers is particularly bitter because cheaper corn has not translated into cheaper food for Mexicans.

That has led to cheap American corn flooding the Mexican market and pushing the poorest Mexican farmers out of business, according to the report.

But the town workers, they of course arc in harness with the factory masters and proprietors of industry, and they want cheap corn.

He recalled that in those days he drove his old and ramshackle Fiat all over the countryside looking for cheap corn and the lowest slaughterhouse prices.

And indeed, it had to contend with an assembly that demanded handouts of cheap corn and land and wanted a say in the administration of the empire.

Without cheap corn, the modern urbanization of livestock would probably never have occurred.