The Root of the Problem

Pollan, M. (2002). Desire: Control plant: The potato. In The botany of desire: A plant’s eye view of the world (pp. 183-238). New York, NY: Random House.

For this week’s reading, we returned to Pollan to discuss a plant that has a very similar story to corn, but with its own unique complexities added to the mix. Pollan begins by suggesting that the story of potatoes is much like that of a computer; instructions are given to both the potato itself as well as the farmer to be programmed with (p. 190). As a result, agribusiness corporations such as Monsanto see themselves akin to being nature’s Microsoft, creating operating systems by which nature must fall under and comply with (p. 191). I don’t disagree with this analysis, but I do have to say that it leaves me with a rather depressing feeling about the state of affairs that the 21st century has allowed itself to succumb. It would appear that while mankind has expertly crafted a system to improve their lives, man has not yet learned from the folly of the past. Even today, we continue on the path laid out for us by our European ancestors, one of whom is credited as saying:

[T]he European intellectuals went further and started seeing the whole world as an analogue of the clockwork mechanism. For bishops and mathematicians, the universe became a vast mechanical clock created by God so that ‘all the wheels moved as harmoniously as possible’. ~ Francis Bacon

There is no doubt in my mind that has Bacon been alive today, he would substitute his clock for a computer. To speak of nature is being a computer requiring man’s expert programming abilities is very much like science fiction and futuristic. However, Pollan does suggest that plants can take care of themselves quite well, especially if an apocalyptic event were to occur – no single germ could wipe out all of the plants species on the planet (p. 197). And yet, when Pollan speaks more on monoculture, this natural defence against apocalypse becomes null and void as ALL plants species will die out, thus creating a lack of oxygenation in the atmosphere and thereby killing all animal life as we know it. Sounds grim, doesn’t it? You’d think that smart corporate executives and the scientists working for them would realize that the risk is too great, and yet psychological studies show that humans love to gamble.

Continuing with the computerized metaphor for plants, biotechnology has gone so far as to modify plants in such as way that they can be tested for intellectual property via their genome in what amounts to a Universal Product Code, or barcode (p. 208). Not only are we as a species taking a great risk by gambling with our future, but we are so prideful that we cannot allow others to help and contribute to the process so that fewer errors are made in the lab. This is a pile of crap – which potatoes love, by the way (p. 210). The most sumptuous and tasty potatoes ever have been fertilized with manure, which just goes to show that nature doesn’t need genetic cleaning – it loves to be dirty!

But no, we now live in a world where even the farmers themselves have surrendered to the digital world by allowing their own farms to be run by computers (p. 220). Not only is this a deviation from nature, it is also promoting laziness in society, which I believe will only assist in contributing to its inevitable downfall. We love our GMO potatoes so much that eventually, we will be joining them underground as a devastated species…or will we? Perhaps GMO potatoes are better than the previous kind which required any number of herbicides and insecticides to treat them (p. 221)?

At any rate, I believe that we have spent far too much time in the sun as our thinking processes must be off tangent. Our food systems are becoming as Pollan suggests, more Apollonian and less Dionysian – Apollo being the ancient Greek god of the sun (p. 229). If I may be allowed to extend the metaphor, we may end up like another Greek legend, Icarus. Having been blessed with wings, Icarus tried to fly up towards the sun to be with the gods on Mount Olympus [Canada’s doing awesome in the Olympics, by the way…] only to have his wings burn up and fall down from the heavens. Unless some changes are made, this is surely going to be the result of our foolish ways to conquer nature as some computer to be programmed.

A Very Corny Story

Pollan, M. (2006). The omnivore’s dilemma: A natural history of four meals. New York, NY: Penguin Press.

Mutation: it is the key to our evolution. It has enabled us to evolve from a single-celled organism into the dominant species on the planet. This process is slow, and normally taking thousands and thousands of years. But every few hundred millennia, evolution leaps forward. ~ Professor Charles Xavier, X-Men.

In the case of corn, we might be able to make the case that zea mays is the actual mutant belonging in comic books that people have come to enjoy – or perhaps it is in some way, ie: the paper, the laminate covering, or…fueling the imagination and drive of those who create such works of literary excellence. It’s quite a story to behold that corn, such as it is, has taken great bounds in its relatively short time with us that it has come so far as not only allowing itself to be domesticated, but also to domesticate us as well (p. 23). Ever since its first encounter by the White Man in 1492 (Christopher Columbus on his Santa Maria), corn was the key ally in the defeat of the Native American lifestyle (p. 24). There is no man-made weapon on this planet that can inflict such an ethnocide on such a broad and wide scale as corn did for Caucasians. It is because of this that today, consumers of corn might be able to be considered as being accessories to that crime committed by the corn. Such a move on the part of corn was very clever indeed, and as Pollan distinctly notes, “Corn is the protocapitalist plant,” by taking any and all such measures to secure its survival in the coming modern world (p. 26). Corn grows tall and narrow, allowing for the best ‘soldiers’ to press the attack as well as making room for as many reinforcements as possible (p. 30). No human army can lay claim to such a triumph of military precision – and it’s still considered to be natural!

Now that I have you ‘corn’ered with no possible avenue of escape, there is still yet to tell of such a capitalist plant. For instance, I now can firmly say that one of the most successful corporations on this planet has learned a great deal from corn – that being Monsanto. Apart from being the producer of the Agent Orange compound used in the deforestation efforts during the Vietnam War, Monsanto is also the company behind the Bt cotton problems in today’s India, of which Vandana Shiva can do much better at explaining than I am able. Monsanto is among the leading genetically-modified organism (GMO) companies in the world, and contributes to the efforts of the corn cycle. From growing corn at farms, to transporting it to processing facilities, to processing it, and distributing it to worldwide consumers, the web of the life of corn is simple to understand and yet difficult to grasp. Agribusiness is certainly not a risky enterprise. “You are what you eat,” says the common cliché, however Pollan rightfully suggests that “we are what what we eat eats, too” (p. 84). In other words, we consume corn both directly and indirectly via bovines and gasoline. We have learned some of the greatest life ways through corn, and are surely on no path to forgo or forget such patterns of living.

But if we stop to think that corn is just a military and capitalist participant, we couldn’t be more wrong. Corn can also be quite magical too! According to Pollan, corn carries out a certain alchemy when only four cents worth of the grass can become a product worth more than four dollars, multiplying its value by more than 100 times (p. 93)! I suppose that’s why economists get excited when such prospects arise such as “value-added” products come to the market (p. 95). Magical and economical are now also terms that can be attributed to corn. Nature continues to do everything so correctly and yet humans continue to make mistakes, some of them over again, for so long. When will we, as a species, learn to bounce back from our errors like the elastic that we are prone to be called (p. 99).  Our digestive systems might be able to cope with whatever we throw it at, but what does that say about us as a species? I’d rather not think about it… In fact, I’m so inclined now to disagree with Pollan and ingest some spirits rather than sweets as I feel pretty depressed about the topic at hand (p. 103). But now I have the munchies, and so I might as well go eat some fast food to feel better quickly – only, I won’t be eating alone, or will I? Everyone eats so quickly nowadays that people have forgotten what it’s like to have a communal meal together (p. 110). I’ll certainly be full after devouring so many calories, but I won’t truly be satisfied (p. 119).

Farming for Facts

Diamond, J. M. (1999). Farmer power. In Guns, germs, and steel: The fates of human societies (pp. 85-92). New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Co.

Diamond, J. M. (1999). To farm or not to farm. In Guns, germs, and steel: The fates of human societies (pp. 104-113). New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Co.

Diamond, J. M. (1999). Apples or indians. In Guns, germs, and steel: The fates of human societies (pp. 131-156). New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Co.

This week, I decided to focus my efforts upon reading Diamond more thoroughly so as to give him a fair chance over his competitor in the previous post. upon reading a few more chapters, I have come across a new term, as well as novel concept that I hadn’t considered before – plant domestication. That is just a fancy way of saying farming for crops (p. 86). Normally, when we think of farming we think of the sowing of seeds into fields and the resulting, glorious harvest that we will be able to reap once the growing season is over – and the eating of those crops of course! However, there is so much more to plant domestication than simply consumption by way of digestion. Plants can be used for many more things such as clothing and building supplies (p. 88). Along with plant domestication came animal domestication, which helped in the process of farming in two ways: one, those animals were able to create the necessary manure for crop fertilization; two, those animals helped with the work of the farm by tilling and plowing fields (p. 88).

I really appreciate that Diamond is giving historical and political backgrounds to the farming process as well [especially in a biology monograph!]. Without the need for a hunter-gatherer society, people learn to stay in place at any given time and build up food surpluses that can be used to pay taxes to those “specialists” that are otherwise preoccupied with governing and guarding the land that is being farmed (p. 90). If you think about it, biologically, it is quite the symbiotic relationship between two different social stratum of people – one that I can find myself to respect.

Returning once more to the political, I was really surprised and impressed that Diamond went further with his analysis of the agricultural revolution. He even goes so far as to quote Thomas Hobbes, one of the most famous social contract theoreticians in political philosophy (p. 104). While Diamond paraphrases Hobbes, I find that a more fuller revelation is in order to understand how politics and agriculture do meet:

In such condition, there is no place for industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving, and removing, such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.* ~ Thomas Hobbes

*Please leave a comment if you’re unsure about this. We can have an excellent conversation about this for a while.

Getting off of the political beat, I also find it interesting how Diamond asserts that food production is not a discovery or an invention, but is an evolutionary process by which has naturally occurred as the result of decisions made by humans indirectly causing such an outcome (p. 105-106). However, I am going to have to disagree with Diamond on this as it is really a discovery, by which food production was discovered by humans as a new and intriguing concept by which to live. I do appreciate Diamond’s link to economics of food production in that people naturally find food with the greatest potential of reward with as little risk as possible (p. 107). Farming seems to be the answer to this particular dilemma. Moreover, a dilemma that Diamond mentions regarding the ultimate agricultural correlation between rise in food production and rise in human population throughout prehistory is noteworthy (p. 111). The answer to this problem, I feel, is incredibly elusive…although why does it even matter? We know that they are positively correlated and therefore a rise in one will affect the other, and so we can have a measurable outcome and can therefore proceed to experiment, not to find causation, but to find practical application.

However, I do find Diamond’s answers to the question of the Fertile Crescent to be quite illuminating and decisive. One, the Fertile Crescent has the largest area for the “Mediterranean” climate to take effect (p. 138); two, the Fertile Crescent enjoys the greatest variation in that climate (p. 138); three, the Fertile Crescent has the greatest range of altitudes so as to allow for the best possible adaptation to take place (p. 140); four, a wealth of mammalia to affect changes in the area (p. 141); and five, the Fertile Crescent faced little hunter-gatherer problems which resulted in the fastest advance to the food production era (p. 142). In the Fertile Crescent area specifically, people weren’t oblivious to the fact that their lifestyles needed to change, and therefore innovation was necessary to ensure the survival of humans in the area (p. 154).

Suffice it to say, Diamond has reassured me that he still has much to offer for my learning experience in biology. He has acknowledged the fact that economics, history, and politics has a role to play in the farmer’s fields.

A Bittersweet Choice

Diamond, J. M. (1999). How to make an almond. In Guns, germs, and steel: The fates of human societies (pp. 114-130). New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Co.

Pollan, M. (2001). Introduction: The human bumblebee. In The botany of desire: A plant’s eye view of the world (pp. xiii-xxv). New York, NY: Random House.

Why did plants come about the way they are today? What mechanisms were in place to drive them towards their modern states? How did such change happen? These are all perfectly valid and legitimate questions to ask in the world of botany, and surely there are answers to be found that shall both astonish and amaze the reader in a way that was never thought possible.

To put simply, plants changed to their forms today as a result of evolution. However, the term “evolution” is so broad that is requires narrowing down. More specifically, natural, or even artificial selection is what drove plants to become the fierce kingdom as they are. Artificial selection being the process by which plants become domesticated and serve the goals and aspirations of humankind. Here, we see how something called “coevolution” takes place (Pollan, p. xiv), however I don’t like this terminology. Instead, I prefer to think of the interaction between plants and animals, especially humans, a “symbiotic relationship” in that they each contribute something to each other, ie: pollination and planting of seeds for the propagation of the species in exchange for food. In this respect, Pollan is certainly on the right track when he states that plants, or any other lifeform, at the most basic genetic level only cares about making more copies of itself (p. xv).

In this particular chapter, I really enjoyed the following excerpt from Pollan on the nature of plants; “Plants are nature’s alchemists, expert at transforming water, soil, and sunlight into an array of precious substances, many of them beyond the ability of human beings to conceive, much less manufacture. (p. xix).” While the sentence may be constructed in an inefficient manner, plants are certainly not. Pollan’s words make plants out to be magical creatures, capable of exploiting the power of both science and myth into becoming a requirement of life itself on this planet Earth. If my theme of the warrior plants remains valid, then it is logical to surmise that plants cannot, nay, should not ever be considered as enemies, but as the most powerful allies that one could ever want.

As allies, plants readily come to the aid of animals, especially humans. Plants are willing participants in what Pollan coins “the invention of agriculture” (p. xx). As the product of agriculture, plants have changed themselves into becoming our most precious materials with which to weave and wear into clothing and as foodstuffs. Plants wholeheartedly accept irrigation for a water source as well as the proximity to nearby species for reproductive purposes. Plants do their best to make us proud, and in so doing attempt to change their level of “fitness” as according to humans via a process called “modification by descent” (p. xxii).

However, not all plants are as cooperative as the rest. As there are black sheep in herds, so too do exist such rebels in the Plant Kingdom that would attempt to disrupt the alliance between plants and animals. These plants would use poison of all weapons to cause discomfort, pain, and death to animals, including humans (Diamond, p. 114)! As one of the oldest and most effective weapons in any assassin’s arsenal, I must say that I am both impressed and disturbed at this realization.

As an example, almond seeds employ an “intensely bitter chemical called amygdalin” to fight off aggressors (p. 118). I begin to wonder if there is any relation to the amygdala in the brain, which is the control center of the “fight or flight” response in Psychology… Clearly, the almond is fighting and wanting others to make flight away from it. Another adaptation which is reminiscent of the warrior theme for plants is the possibility of having an armored seed which cannot be pried into by natural means (p. 121).

In summary, it would appear that plants and animals play a game together, one this is both fun and dangerous at the same time. I don’t know about you, but that conclusion leaves a rather bittersweet taste. Until next time…

Shaping Up and Shipping Out

Hallé, F. (2002). In praise of plants. Portland, OR: Timber Press.

At the outset, I feel compelled to mention that I am by no means proficient or sufficient in the study in Biology, let alone Botany, and so this and future critical analyses by myself may appear oddly different than what is the norm for scientific audiences. Nevertheless, there are resources of which I shall endeavor to critique and put forward new and thoughtful insights in partial fulfillment of an upper-level biology course grade.

To begin with, I have completed reading Chapter 2: A Visit to the Landscape of Form in Hallé’s book, In Praise of Plants. Many topics of discussion are open, not the least of which being Form itself, as well as Energy, Symmetry, and Time.

Hallé talks about how the energy consumption power of plants is meager at best, and therefore plants must adapt to their surroundings, both terran and subterran (p. 43-53). As most are able to observe (key to the scientific method), plants grow above ground with their broad leaves and long stems. We see green all around us a lot of the time in life, and so we may be prone to believe that life on Earth as we know it is all copacetic. However, what we more often than not fail to realize is that there is a battle happening underneath our very feet! This particular kind of battle is one for resources, such as minerals and freshwater in the soil substrates. Here is the field where plants reign supreme and display their readiness to survive by growing exceptionally large roots both deep into the ground, as well as across the ground covering quite a massive amount of voluminous space. If humanity believes their battles and wars to be worth putting into history books, they could not be more mistaken (at least from a botanical perspective). Every second, of every day, of every year, each plant fights for the right to survive against all others – even against their own offspring (more on this in a later posting). They may be slower than animals, but plants are the true warriors on this plant – a concept that Hallé seems to understand but never fully admits.

Further evidence of this notion comes from the fact that the majority of all man-made objects and animals are bilaterally symmetrical, whereas plants are usually symmetrically radial (p. 69-74). Such symmetry in the natural world can be thought of as a hindrance or weakness, and therefore we can hypothesize that man-made objects and animals are inherently incompetent to deal with the natural world, whereas plants continue to dominate in this realm.

Another aspect of the warrior plant is the concept of the parasitic embryo. In animals, there is an emotional connection to the infant in the womb, however in plants who have no such emotions (due to lack of a brain to make such emotions happen), plants do not differentiate between friend and foe, offspring or not. More and more we see evidence that plants are the perfect combatants.

As mentioned already, plants do move rather slow and steady, but that is the whole point (p. 103-104). Even the greatest of all generals in human history take time to consider their actions in war before making any sort of moves in the field of battle. The same holds true for plants, but rather than cognitively putting effort into thinking beforehand, I would argue that such a trait is instinctual.

If I had more time, I would continue with Hallé’s thoughts on the Philosophy and Politics of plants, but I think that the above is more than enough to ponder for now. Until next time…

Name a shrub af…

Name a shrub after me. Something prickly and hard to eradicate.