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Behind Americas dollar hamburgers and 72-ounce sodas is a key ingredient that quietly fuels our fast-food nation: corn. In KING CORN , recent college graduates Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis leave the east coast for rural Iowa, where they decide to grow an acre of the nations most powerful crop.

Alarmed by signs of Americas bulging waistlines, the filmmakers arrive in the Midwest enthusiastic about their new endeavor. For their farm-to-be, they choose a tiny town in Floyd, County, Iowa—a place that, coincidentally, both Ian and Curts great-grandfathers called home three generations ago. They lease an acre of land from a skeptical landlord, fill out a pile of paperwork to sign up for subsidies and discover the U.S. government will pay them 28 dollars for their acre. Ian and Curt start the spring by injecting ammonia fertilizer, which promises to increase crop production four-fold. Then its planting time. With a rented high-tech tractor, they set 31,000 seeds in the ground in just 18 minutes. Their corn has also been genetically modified for another yield-increasing characteristic: herbicide resistance. When the seedlings sprout from Iowas black dirt, Ian and Curt apply a powerful herbicide to ensure that only their corn will thrive on their acre. By summer, their modern farm is thriving, and the Corn Belt is moving toward a record harvest of 11 billion bushels of corn. But where will all that corn go? With their crop growing head-high, Ian and Curt leave the farm to see where Americas abundance of corn ends up. As they enter Americas industrial kitchen, they are forced to confront the realities of their crops future. In Brooklyn, it sweetens the sodas of a diabetes-plagued neighborhood. In Colorado, it fattens the feed trough of a 100,000-head cattle feedlot. Ian and Curt are increasingly troubled by how the abundance of corn is helping to make fast food cheap and consumers sick, driving animals into confinement and farmers off the land. Animal nutritionists confirm that corn feeding can make cows sick and beef fatty, but it also lets consumers have fast food at low prices. As feedlot operator Bob Bledsoe says in KING CORN, America wants and demands cheap food.

As Ian and Curt discover, almost everything Americans eat contains corn. High-fructose corn syrup, corn-fed meat, and corn-based processed foods are the staples of the modern diet. Americas record harvests of corn are supported by a government subsidy system that promotes corn production beyond all market demand. As Ian and Curt return to Iowa to watch their 10,000-pound harvest fill the combines hopper and make its way into Americas food, they realize their acre of land shouldnt be planted in corn again—if they can help it.

Update
Filmmakers Aaron Woolf, Curt Ellis and Ian Cheney provided updates in February 2008 on what they’ve been up to since filming ended:

Ian and Curt left Iowa when filming for KING CORN was completed, and lived in New York and Boston while they helped with the editing. Last fall, when KING CORN got picked up for theatrical distribution, they set out on the road with Aaron, talking with audiences at theaters, college campuses and community screenings. In December they returned to Iowa, where they held screening-and-discussion events in communities across the state.

Ian and Curt have since finished a new documentary, The Greening of Southie, which follows the construction crew that tries to build the first residential green building in Boston. That film will be broadcast on the Sundance Channel on Earth Day 2008.

Ian is now living in Boston, where he roots for the Red Sox and is working on two new documentaries: one on the night sky, and another on the Melungeon community of Vardy Valley, Tennessee. Curt is back home in Oregon, where he is writing and working on film projects as a Food and Society Policy Fellow. The latest hair tests show Ian to be 43 percent corn, and Curt, 39 percent.

Aaron is living in New York, where he has opened a know-where-your-food-comes-from grocery store, Urban Rustic, in Brooklyn

Duration : 0:10:0

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