Death by a Thousand Cuts

On his way to school, a boy notices a spaceman walking through a corn field. “What is he doing, Mummy?”
“He’s spraying the corn to kill the insects.”
“Why?”
“To prevent them eating all the crop.”
“We eat the crop. Will it kill us too?”
She laughs, “Of course not, honey. It’s perfectly safe.”
Later at science class, he learns about the food chain, and how the eagles are dying out because of the effects of pesticide in their ecosystem, and again he shows concern.
He is hungry when he arrives home, but looking at the steaming corn he hesitates.