Michael Pollan Potato Case Study

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The Human Desire of Control Michael Pollan uses the potato to address the idea of control, in particular, whether we have control over nature or it has control over us. Potatoes were first found in South America growing in the Andes. The ancestors of the Incas lived in that area and were the first known humans to cultivate these potatoes for human consumption (Pollan 131). When settlers came to the New World they marveled at these new crops that grew from spuds and shipped them back to Europe. Potatoes became the crop of choice for peasant farmers, particularly in Ireland, because they contained most of the necessary nutrition required for healthy living and they grew well in nutrient-poor soils. The farmers growing these
The appeal to monoculture is its simplicity. Only growing one crop means the growing conditions, maintenance, and harvesting will always be the same, so the process can be standardized. In terms of potatoes, Pollan looks at monoculture through the lens of farmers growing potatoes for McDonalds (Pollan 143). McDonalds requires a specific type of potato that will yield a large size for their French fries, and they need that potato to constantly meet their customers’ demand for French fries. A farmer seeking to be a supplier for them would not have the time and energy to cultivate other crops, making monoculture a lucrative option for him or her. This makes monoculture a product of the economical world around us. As Pollan states, the practice of monoculture goes against the way nature works. As seen in the 1800s, relying on a single crop makes that crop vulnerable to disease, insects, competing plants, etc. One farmer he interviews says that “the bugs are always going to be smarter than we are,” which begs the larger question Pollan is attempting to answer: are we in control of nature or is nature in control of us (Pollan 144)? The Irish’s attempt to control the potato was met with a severe response from nature. This explains the creation and use of
Polyculture is associated with, but not exclusively limited to, the movement in organic farming (Pollan 144). The main drawback is the work required to maintain the different species being grown. Each plant requires its own growing conditions, so maintenance becomes labor intensive. However, this method of farming greatly increases the biodiversity of the fields which reduces susceptibility to disease and pests, and creates genetically diverse species. Polyculture is very different from monoculture in more ways than simply growing more than one crop. Monoculture is the attempt to control a crop to maximize yield. Polyculture is the acknowledgement of nature’s control and the attempt to grow successful crops through changing the process of growing plants based on the ecological system around them. The people who grew early potatoes on the Andes grew a wide variety of different potato species so that not all of them were likely to susceptible to the same disease (Pollan 131). Pollan’s discussion of these methods leans heavily toward the idea that even though monoculture is simpler and more profitable, it is an inferior method to polyculture that is mainly still in use to feed the capitalistic machine of the global food

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