Problems

Child labour is common in the production of maize Large scale production of maize has various detrimental effects on the environment as well. In the US maize production leads to more soil erosion that any other crop due to the amounts of soil tillage used to prepare and weed the soil. Erosion is also worsened by the fact that farmers are increasingly abandoning the traditional system of rotating maize with soybeans, beans, or other vegetables and planting maize year after year. Rotation in the case of maize is important since the plant itself provides little ground cover, exposing the soil to wind and water leading to erosion. Since the plant has very high water needs in order to grow and to germinate, large maize plantations threaten water availability due to the overuse of water. In areas with a less suitable climate, these needs increase, so large scale farms set up irrigation systems. This has led to the overexploitation of ground water aquifers in the U.S., China, Mexico and Argentina, putting at risk populations who depend on the same water source for their own use. Moreover, the large amounts of inputs utilized, particularly fertilizers and herbicides, seep into water sources, contaminating them and threatening the health of humans and animals. Some of these chemicals, for example Atrazine, which is the most commonly used in the production of maize, have been linked with sexual abnormalities in frogs, and have been linked to prostate cancer. Air pollution has also been an issue, mainly from the emissions produced at milling plants.