Under the Empyrean Sky: The Heartland Trilogy, Book 1

Cael McAvoy is a teen boy living in the Heartland, an impoverished city that has been overgrown with strains of genetically modified corn. As captain of the Big Sky Scavengers (a group of teens who make their living by finding random goods and reselling them for profit), he's beyond angry when the rival scavenger gang, led by the mayor's son, causes him to crash his ship. While forced to meander through the living corn, Cael and his team come across a field of forbidden fruits and vegetables. Just before Cael was born, the Empyrean government banned growing anything but corn. Cael, tired of looking into the sky to see the Empyrean privileged floating on their flotillas, living like lords and ladies while he and his loved ones barely scrape by, decides to take the seeds from the untouched garden and illegally harvest his own vegetables. There are just a couple of obstacles in his way: his father and the all-knowing government.