The Global Ascension of Corn and Soybeans

As part of the “iron triangle,” producer and corporate interests have a significant influence on agricultural policy, but this influence is complicated by changing and competing interests, particularly around corn, cotton, soybeans, and wheat. From the 1930s to the 1970s, a wheat-cotton coalition helped to forge a policy of supply management that relied on price supports, production controls, and export subsidies that aimed to increase farm incomes, stabilize agricultural markets, and prevent overproduction. In the 1990s, however, supply management policy was ended and its central goals of stabilizing markets and managing supply were cast aside. This current policy era has been driven in part by corn and soybean interests and shaped by three global forces that encourage the expansion of production for these commodities: global liberalization and expanded free trade, the advent of genetically engineered seeds, and the expansion of the meat industry.