Cornfields, endless cornfields!

Reno Trip,AirBalloons,TruckeeRiverSept2008 057
Originally uploaded by dyerohmeb

During my recent trip across the USA on the Amtrak, I just got so tired staring at endless and very, very wide patches of cornfields! The sight becomes very common after awhile, that it's dulling my senses. I think this kind of view outside the train must have started right after we got out of Chicago (or even Chicago, but I was asleep then!).

The picture, which I fixed, shows some shadows belonging to my co-passengers. These fields provide more than the supply of the whole USA, I suppose, and most would be exported for some other industrial or commercial purposes. I wonder what farming technologies are used by owners of these farms, which could be owned by huge companies, or maybe by individual landowners/farmers who must have joined together to come up with something economically strategic for their own interests. Who could be the players in this very huge agribusiness endeavor. I wonder who are their buyers; I also wonder what makes up the totality of the end consumers of the produce from all these cornfields. I won't be surprised, though, that part of the huge wealth of the US lies here in these very fields!