America's over-production of corn/maize is a direct result of Nixon. His administration knew how to deal with protesting hippies, but when farmers & housewives started protesting, the response was to heavily subsidize corn/maize production. With vast quantities of the stuff, companies looked to find uses for the stuff. Two books that describe the situation are Omnivore's Dilemma and Altered Harvest. The subsidies for growing maize/corn make it cheap, add in the tariffs on sugar imports and that explains why HFCS is ubiquitous.

0 - https://www.amazon.com/Omnivores-Dilemma-Natural-History-Mea...

1 - https://www.amazon.com/Altered-Harvest-Jack-Doyle/dp/0670115... This book also explains why tea is the British beverage (and not coffee), or how the Irish potato famine happened. And it explains the source of the corn blight that caused rioting farmers & housewives - texas male-sterile cytoplasm was used by all the hybrid seed companies, so a blight that affected one plant affected 80% of the US corn/maize crop.

This book Prosperity Without Growth [1] is a decent start from the perspective of an economist/environmentalist. It's somewhat hampered by the author's failure to rigorously define terms (a serious no-no for any economic/philosophical argument) but contains some good ideas.

Another great read from a more relate able angle is The Omnivore's Dilemma which doesn't address the issue very directly, but shows in painstaking detail how the US food chain has moved from a renewable solar base to one derived entirely from corn, which in turn relies on cheap petrochemical sources to grow at the speed, intensity, and volume that we grow it in the US.

Check out the reviews for both books as well - many of them cite other important works in the genre.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Prosperity-without-Growth-Economics-F...

[2] https://www.amazon.com/Omnivores-Dilemma-Natural-History-Mea...