2010 production of corn in the United States

The Corn Belt is a region of the Midwestern United States where corn has, since the 1850s, been the predominant crop, replacing the native tall grasses. By 1950, 99% of the corn was grown from hybrids. Most corn is fed to livestock, especially hogs and poultry. In recent decades soybeans have grown in importance. The U.S. produces 40% of the world crop.^[1]

Geographic definitions of the region vary. Typically it is defined to include Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and eastern Nebraska, eastern Kansas, southern Minnesota and parts of Missouri.^[2] As of 2008, the top four corn-producing states were Iowa, Illinois, Nebraska, and Minnesota, together accounting for more than half of the corn grown in the United States.^[3] The Corn Belt also sometimes is defined to include parts of South Dakota, North Dakota, Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Kentucky.^[4] The region is characterized by relatively level land and deep, fertile soils, high in organic matter.^[5]

More generally "Corn Belt" represents the most intensively agricultural region of the Midwest, connoting a lifestyle based on ownership of family farms, with supporting small towns and powerful farm organizations that lobbied to obtain higher prices.^[6][7]

History[link]

In the era from 1860 to 1982, new agricultural technology transformed the Corn Belt from a mixed crop-and-livestock farming area to a highly specialized cash-grain farming area. While the landscape was greatly modified, the family farm remained the normal form. Its acreage doubled, as farmers bought out their neighbors (who then moved to nearby towns). After 1970 increased crop and meat production required an export outlet, but global recession and a strong dollar reduced exports, depressed prices below costs of production, and created serious problems even for the best farm managers.^[2]

Vice President Henry A. Wallace, a politician and pioneer of hybrid seeds, declared in 1956 that the Corn Belt developed the "most productive agricultural civilization the world has ever seen".^[8]

Impacts[link]

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Over the past few years farming of genetically modified crops, especially corn has dramatically increased. In only less than four years millions of acres have been planted. These new crops feature resistance to pests and the ability to tolerate herbicides. The increased farming of these crops has been encouraged by the potential cost savings, including reductions in input use. Genetic modifications have included input traits such as pest resistance and herbicide tolerance, providing advantages to farmers in the production phase without changing the final product. The input traits may increase farmers' net profits through savings in production costs, reducing chemical use, increased flexibility in crops planted, and in some cases, increased crop yield. It also gains improved nutritional characteristics. Genetically modified crops currently on the market are approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) and are a result of very sizable investments, largely by private sector firms. GM corn is designed to resist damage from the European Corn Borer (ECB), a major insect pest in the Corn Belt. The impact of this insect is generally not seen until the damage has occurred because the borer tunnels inside the stalk. Benefits of genetically modified crops will vary from year to year and over different locations depending on environmental factors. The environmental benefits of herbicide-tolerant crops derive from the reduction in the number of chemical applications, reduction in energy use due to fewer passes across the fields, and reduction in the need for tillage. Runoff of chemicals into groundwater could be minimized and no-till operations can reduce the erosion of top-soil.^[9] The potential risk is the currently the main limiting factor in the expansion of GM corn and its use in the Corn Belt, mostly because the technology is still relatively new and the repercussions are yet to be seen.

See also[link]

	Agriculture and Agronomy portal
	Geography portal

• The Breadbasket
• Midwest

Other nations:

• Black Earth Provinces (Russian language equivalent of Grain Belt)

Canadian grain production regions

• Canadian Prairies, Canada's 'Breadbasket'
• Palliser's Triangle, Canada's semi-arid grain production region.

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Anderson, J. L. Industrializing the Corn Belt: Agriculture, Technology, and Environment, 1945-1972 (2009) 238 pp. ISBN 978-0-87580-392-0
• Bogue, Allan. From Prairie to Corn Belt: Farming on the Illinois and Iowa Prairies in the Nineteenth Century (1963) excerpt and text search
• Cayton, Andrew, et al. eds. The American Midwest: An Interpretive Encyclopedia (2006) excerpt and text search
• Hart, John Fraser. "Change in the Corn Belt," Geographical Review, Jan 1986, Vol. 76#1 pp 51–72
• Hudson, John C. Making the Corn Belt: A Geographical History of Middle-Western Agriculture (1994)
• Power, Richard Lyle. Planting Corn Belt Culture: The Impress of the Upland Southerner and Yankee in the old Northwest (1953)
• Snapp, Roscoe R. Beef Cattle Their Feeding and Management in the Corn Belt States (1950)
• Smith, C. Wayne, et al. Corn: Origin, History, Technology, and Production (2004) online edition
• Wallace, Henry Agard. Henry A. Wallace's Irrigation Frontier: On the Trail of the Corn Belt Farmer 1909 15 articles written by Wallace in 1909; 1991 edition edited by Richard Lowitt, and Judith Fabry

External links[link]

• Media related to Corn Belt at Wikimedia Commons

Coordinates: 41°N 90°W / 41°N 90°W / 41; -90

Larry Levan (born Lawrence Philpot, July 20, 1954 – November 8, 1992^[3]) was a DJ best known for his decade-long residency at the New York City night club Paradise Garage, which has been described as the prototype of the modern dance club. He developed a cult following who referred to his sets as "Saturday Mass". Influential US DJ François Kevorkian credits Levan with introducing the dub aesthetic into dance music. Along with Kevorkian, Levan experimented with drum machines and synthesizers in his productions and live sets, ushering in an electronic, post-disco sound that presaged the ascendence of house music.^[4]

Career[link]

Levan got his start alongside DJ Frankie Knuckles at the Continental Baths,^[3] as a replacement for the DJ from The Gallery, Nicky Siano. Levan's DJing style was influenced by Siano's eclectic style, and by The Loft's David Mancuso, who briefly dated Levan in the early 1970s. As Knuckles was still trying to make his way in the New York club scene, Levan became a popular attraction perhaps due to his "diva persona", which he developed in the city's notoriously competitive black drag "houses".^[5]

At the height of the disco boom in 1977, Levan was offered a residency at the Paradise Garage. Although owner Michael Brody, who employed Levan at the defunct Reade Street, intended to create a downtown facsimile of Studio 54 catering to an upscale white gay clientele, Levan initially drew an improbable mix of streetwise blacks, Latinos, and punks.

Open only to a select membership and housed in an otherwise unadorned building on King Street in Greenwich Village, the club and Levan's DJing slowly engendered themselves into the mainstream. The DJ and programming director from WBLS, Frankie Crocker often mentioned the club on air and based his playlists around Levan's sets. The Richard Long & Associates Sound system,(RLA) of the club included custom-designed "Levan Horn Bass Speakers".

Filling the void left by leading remixer Walter Gibbons, Levan became a prolific producer and mixer in the late 1970s and early 1980s, with many of his efforts crossing over onto the national dance music charts. Among the records that received Levan's touch were his remixes of "Ain't Nothin' Goin On But The Rent" by Gwen Guthrie and "Heartbeat" by Taana Gardner,^[3] as well as his production work on "Don't Make Me Wait" by the Peech Boys,^[3] a group that Levan formed and was part of (and who became the New York Citi Peech Boys when the Beach Boys threatened a lawsuit due to the similar sound of the name). With a strong gospel tinge in the vocal arrangements and driven by a tinkling piano, the latter song is a quintessential example of the deejay's soulful aesthetic. One of the first dance releases to incorporate a dub influence and an appended vocal-only edit, Levan tinkered with the song for nearly a year to the consternation of Mel Cheren, whose label, West End Records, was nearing bankruptcy. When it was finally released, much of the song's momentum had been lost and it stalled in the lower reaches of the charts.

As the popularity of the Garage soared in the mid-1980s just as many of his longtime friends lost their battles with AIDS, Levan became increasingly dependent upon PCP and heroin. While performing, he began to ensconce himself within a protective entourage of drag queens and younger acolytes. As beat-matching and stylistic adherence became the norm among club DJs, Levan's idiosyncratic sets (ranging the gamut from Evelyn "Champagne" King and Chaka Khan to Kraftwerk, Manuel Göttsching,^[3] & British synth-pop) elicited criticism from some quarters. Nevertheless, he remained at the vanguard of dance music; recordings of Levan's later sets at the Garage demonstrate his affinity for the insurgent sounds of Chicago house and hip-hop.

The Garage ended its run with a 48 hour-long party in September 1987,^[3] weeks before Brody died from AIDS-related complications. The closure devastated Levan, who knew that few club owners would tolerate his quirks and drug dependencies. Although Brody had verbally bequeathed the club's sound and lighting systems to Levan, they were instead left to Brody's mother in his will. This change was reportedly instigated by the late impresario's lover and manager, who reportedly despised Levan.

Despite protestations and pleas to the Brody family from Mel Cheren, the systems remained in storage as their property. Unable to secure a long-term residency after a stay at the short-lived Choice in the East Village alongside DJ/proprietor Richard Vasquez and Joey Llanos, Levan began to sell his valuable records for drug money. Friends like Danny Krivit would buy them back for him out of sympathy.

As the nineties dawned, Levan was on the brink of a comeback. Although dismissed as a relic in New York, his popularity had soared among connoisseurs of disco and early American electronic dance music in Europe and Japan. In 1991, he was brought over for the weekend to London by Justin Berkmann to DJ at London's Ministry of Sound nightclub^[3] where he ended up staying for 3 months remixing, producing and helping to tune the club's sound system. Although he was still dependent on heroin, Levan's 1992 tour of Japan garnered gushing accolades in the local press. Encouraged by Cheren, he entered rehab and made a tentative return to the studio. On the contrary, he informed his mother in June 1992 that he had "lived a good life" and was "ready to die"; Francois Kevorkian described Levan's final Japanese sets as nostalgic and inspirational, imbued with an air of bittersweetness and closure.

Death[link]

Shortly after returning home from Japan, Levan voluntarily entered the hospital. He died four days later on November 8 of heart failure caused by endocarditis.^[6] In September 2004, Levan was inducted into the Dance Music Hall of Fame for his outstanding achievement as a DJ.

Tribute[link]

The 2006 album The Rose Has Teeth in the Mouth of a Beast, by electronic music duo Matmos, contains a tribute to Levan titled "Steam and Sequins for Larry Levan".

Footnotes[link]

References[link]

• Brewster, Bill and Broughton, Frank (1999) Last Night a DJ Saved my Life: the History of the Disc Jockey Headline Book Publishing Ltd. ISBN 0-7472-6230-6
• Lawrence, Tim (2004). Love Saves the Day: A History of American Dance Music Culture, 1970-1979 . Duke University Press. ISBN 0-8223-3198-5.

External links[link]

• West End Records
• JahSonic.com:Larry Levan comprehensive page by Jan Geerinck
• featured on the free Emancipation podcast - October '08