In the book The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan in chapter 4 he talks in depth about the potato and a type of GMO that Monsanto's has come out with. He makes a hypothesis about the GMO variety and goes in great length to figure out the answer to his question. He also contrast the GMO variety with other plants he talks about in his book and how the changing of genes isn't really helping use as a society. He then talks about monocultures and makes some points on how it is good and how it is bad ,but more on how they are bad than good. Michele Pollan's hypothesis on potatoes is one that a lot of people would agree with and some people would disagree with. He talks about how Monsanto is making BT ready potatoes known as the NewLeaf potato …show more content…
verity. A BT or Bacillus thuringiensis is an organic insecticide that can be used on a number of crops. Bt is derived from a bacteria that is found everywhere in the world in the soil. It's completely natural and its toxic to most of the worms found in the lepidoptera family. His question to his hypothesis is ;why doesn't Monsanto label there verities as a GMO?. To answer his question he travels to different places in the United States to solve his question. He travels to St Louis to one of Monsanto's research center where he asks questions on how GMOs are being made any how they will affect his potatoes. He also travels to Idaho to ask potato farms if they like the GMO potatoes. He got some answers he wasn't expecting and some numbers that show that a BT ready potato would help farmers out. With a BT already in the potatoes the grower can skip a few sprays and save money and increase their profits. After exploring their farms he goes home to his potatoes that he planted and they are ready to be harvested. He harvests his potatoes and eats the natural potatoes that he grew alongside his NewLeaf potatoes, but can't bring himself to eat the NewLeaf potatoes. To a sure him that they are safe he makes some phone calls. First to the government agencies in Washington that signed off on the NewLeaf. The Food and Drug Administration told him that Monsanto's isn't required to let them know that they developed a new GMO plant. The FDA wouldn't even consider NewLeaf as a new variety but as a pesticide because it contains a pesticide. He then calls the EPA and they tell him since BT's are safe and potatoes are safe then the product must be safe. He is shocked that there was no testing involved just that there both safe so together they must be safe. After these phone calls he isn't confidant in eating is NewLeaf potatoes. He tries to eat them but can't bring himself to do so. He then gets an opportunity to eat them by making a potato salad for a potluck. He is about to cook them and then his answer to his hypothesis comes to him, if he makes this potato salad with these GMO potatoes shouldn't he tell the people that they are eating GMO potatoes. If he doesn't tell them he would be just like Monsanto and how they don't label GMO foods. This giving him the answer, Monsanto doesn't label them cause they know that people won't buy their product because it says GMO. They would most likely pick the potato that doesn't have the big GMO sticker on it. Therefore he can't bring himself to let them eat it without knowing what they are eating, so he doesn't use the NewLeaf potatoes and just sets them aside. During his talk about his potato hypothesis he compares his NewLeaf variety to his other chapter of plants in his book. He says "While the other plants coevolved in a kind of conversational give-and-take with people, the NewLeaf potato has really only taken, only listened."(Pollan, 2000). He is saying that the other plants he has talked about actually give back something; we give them what they need to survive and return they give us something back. In turns of the potato he is saying that it is just listening and taking what it hears. What he is meaning by this is that the NewLeaf potato is being told what the people want by Monsanto even if the people don't truly want it Monsanto is developing it. In his book along with talking about his beliefs with potatoes and contrasting the NewLeaf potatoes he brings up monocultures and something's he sees that could be a problem with it and some good things about it. According to Webster dictionary a "monoculture is the cultivation or growth of a single crop or organism especially on agricultural or forest land" (webster, 1904).
What this means is when one crop is grown in a large area. This has its advantages and disadvantages. In Pollan book he talks about a few advantages and a lot of disadvantages. He says "So the freshly hoed earth invites a new crop of weeds, the potent new pesticide engenders resistance in pests, and every new step in the direction of simplification- toward monoculture, say, or genetically identical plants- leads to unimagined new complexities" (Pollan, 2000). This is one of many disadvantages that he talks about what he is saying is that growers are taking over wilderness to plant their crops ( he is calling them weeds). He also is saying the pesticides that are being used are building pest immunity; and that all the plants that are being planted are going to cause the natural world to change and have problems. One advantage he talks about is how it is easier to harvest and weed a crop by the way we plant our monocultures. "Planting these in intelligible rows not only flatters our sense of order, it makes good sense too: weeding and harvesting become that much simpler" (Pollan, 2000). This is an advantage because since there is one crop planted in one massive area it's easy to harvest. The harvesting crews don't have to move so far away when they are done with a field it makes things run much
smother. The quote "never lost their evolutionary say in the matter – never became solely the object of our desires.”(Pollan, 2000) is a somewhat confusing quote that I had to read over multiple time to understand it and yet I still don't know if I completely understand it. However what I interpret is that no matter how much we change the molecular structure of a plant it will still be a plant and survive as a plant, it's not going to turn into something completely different. I agree with this quote because even if we put different genes in a plant it still will be a plant it will never be something us as humans desire it will become what it wants to become. Michael Pollan did a lot of research on the NewLeaf variety. He traveled to a lot of different places and interviewed a lot of different people to get his answer. He made interesting points on how the NewLeaf variety is different than the other plants he talked about in the previous chapters. In the end of this chapter he proved to himself that GMOs are still somewhat dangerous and that he knows a lot of people won't buy a GMO crop when there is one right next to it that isn't a GMO.
Agriculture fixates more on the production of food instead of stewardship, caring and protecting the land. Berry indicates, “Once one’s farm and one’s thoughts have been sufficiently mechanized, industrial agriculture’s focus on production, as opposed to maintenance or stewardship…” (Berry, 2005, para. 11). When farmers direct their attention on producing crops for the corporation, the farmers forget the reason why they farm in the first place. The farmers mislead thoughts on production create agricultural distress because they lack stewardship. Stewardship involves an intimate relationship with nature, but farmers focus more on the efficiency of production, neglecting the farm. Berry emphasizes that production steers the way of farming instead of the actual farm and community. Berry claims, “…emphasis on production permits the way of working to be determined not by the nature and character of the farm in its ecosystem and in its human community” (Berry, 2005, para. 11). Corporations control the farming industry, mistreating the farms and the farming communities. Production disregards the environment of the farm and demands more than the farm can produce, resulting in damage to the
To begin, he introduces the idea that the food production farms aren’t these "happy farms" society makes us believe they are. For instance, the author Michael Pollan explains how farms began to expand causing corn to produce rapidly, leaving massive quantities of
Tom Parrett in the article “GMO SCIENTISTS COULD SAVE US ALL FROM HUNGER, IF WE LET THEM” stated, The United Nations and experts say global food production will have to double by 2050, at which point the world population is expected to have grown from 2 billion today to well beyond 9 billion. That’s just 35 years away, and there will be no new arable land then”. In short, the population is increasing tremendously and we are going to find ourselves with less land to be able to have these massive growing operations. A possibly valid argument, but what about individual farming? Individuals can still farm on their own, and we can prepare for the land problem by reducing the number of preoccupied buildings.
Crops today are thriving, and farmers can owe it all to the pesticides they use. If no pesticides were used, then insects would destroy crops, feeding off of their leaves and produce until hardly anything is left. According to corncommentary.com, Without the use of pesticides and fungicides, most fruit and vegetable crops would suffer a 50-90 percent loss due to uncontrolled insects and disease organisms. Despite what most people believe, even organic growers use pesticides on their crops that have been approved for such organic growers. Even they know that the wrath of insects and other disease organisms would destroy their plants and their profit they would have made from those plants. Also, without things such as weed killers, people would have to till the soil around their crops by hand. On large scale farms, this would take a huge amount of people to complete a task like this. The weeds would have to be pulled up, by their roots to ensure they wouldn’t grow back rapidly. On top of that, the crop would have to be routinely checked for weeds, as they grow fast and of many. The amount of money it would take to pay all the workers, and how often they would need to be paid for their work, is not owned by any farmer. Pesticides, herbicides and fungicides are what help keep our crops protected and healthy. Without them, we would be in deep
GM seeds are considered revolution in the agriculture industry for some reasons. First and foremost, GM seeds can grow crops regardless of hostile conditions, which help farmers increase revenues. Besides, as a result of population growth across the global, the demand for food continuously increases. Biotech products provided by the Monsanto Company will be the best solution for this phenomenon. Especially in populous countries like India, biotech crops allow farmers both save lands and double their harvest.
Berry highlights other environmental consequences of modern agriculture as well, such as the disuse of marginal lands and the destruction of farm culture. He emphasizes that farming is not solely business-oriented, but a way of life, and when it is viewed solely as a means of profit, the land and community suffer
Michael Pollan’s book reveals the story between the relationship of Man vs Nature, and the connection it has with life on Earth. He mentions his objective for his book: to view plants in an intimate relationship with humans by looking at ourselves differently. The book creates an adventure through history to forms of life now, and examines plants through multiple points of views. The Botany of Desire demonstrates a unique comparison of the terms “Botany” and “Desire” through his four chapters:apple,tulip,marijuana, and the potato. Pollan connects human desire and its exploitation of plants through the combination of sweetness, beauty, intoxication, and control.
Throughout The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan, the author argues that the coevolution of plants and humans is seen within the relationship of humans manipulating plants to fulfill their desires. Pollan touches on four main examples where coevolution can be easily seen throughout history and the present. The apple satisfies sweetness, the tulip beauty, marijuana intoxication, and the potato control. As we are benefitting from evolving the plants for our own interest, the plants themselves are benefitting as well. The environmental message of the book surpasses that of coevolution and dives into the technology of genetic engineering
that it 's in due to human activities.. First with the vertical farming, “crops can be produced all
Scientists have been changing genomes of plants and animals by integrating new genes from a different species through genetic engineering, creating a genetically modified organism (GMO). Consumers in America have been eating GMOs since 1996, when they went on the market. There are benefits to genetically modifying crop plants, as it improves the crop quality and increases yield, affecting the economy and developing countries. But there are also negative effects from GMOs. Consumption of GMOs has various health effects on both body systems of animals and humans. GMOs also affect the environment, ecosystems and other animal species. The cons outweigh the pros in the case of GMOs.
An English doctor, named Arpad Pusztai, did a study on rats being fed genetically modified foods. His study found out that rats that ate genetically modified potatoes had pre-cancerous cells, smaller brains, smaller livers, smaller testicles, and damaged immune systems. After finding this out, he then changed the eating habits of the rats by interchanging between feeding them organic potatoes and genetically modified potatoes for two weeks at a time. He concluded that whenever the rats ate the organic potatoes, their symptoms disappeared, but when the rats ate the GMO potatoes again, the symptoms reappeared. Pusztai study isn’t the only that proves that GMOs are harmful. Other studies have also shown that GMOs are linked to reproductive problems, immune system problems, accelerated aging, gastrointestinal distress, and dysfunctional regulation. This proves that GMOs have a serious effect on our
Everyone in today's society hears GMOs and thinks that they are a bad product. Well that is not really the case, people have just put a bad name on GMOs. They are actually very beneficial to society. Now some may ask what are GMOs? It stands for genetically modified organism, they are used to make bigger, more developed products. GMOs use biotechnology to form a better crop. Farmers find them to be helpful, in crops, feed, and even animals.
The definition of conventional farming is “Intensive farming or intensive agriculture as an agricultural production system characterized by a low fallow ratio and the high use of inputs such as capital, labor, or heavy use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers relative to land area.” Conventional farming is the method that a majority of farmers use. Although they have to use a lot more chemicals and fertilizers, conventional farming is cheaper than organic farming. Conventional farming has significantly higher crop yields than organic thus, producing more money, making it much more farmer friendly. Conventional farmers also use genetically engineered seeds that are sometimes referred to as “miracle seeds” because of their ability to fight against certain diseases or produce higher yields. The technical term for these seeds is HYV’s or high yield varieties (Qaim). Conventional farming also incorporates the use...
As agriculture has become more intensive, farmers have become capable of producing higher yields using less labour and less land. Growth of the agriculture has not, however, been an unmixed blessing. It, like every other thing, has its pros and cons. Topsoil depletion, groundwater contamination, the decline of family farms, continued neglect of the living and working conditions for farm labourers, increasing costs of production, and the disintegration of economic and social conditions in rural communities. These are the cons of the new improved agriculture.
It is evident that the majority of American farmers utilize biotech seeds, because of the risks that the insect resistant and herbicide resistant traits help reduce. GMO's make the life of a farmer much easier as they do not have to worry about rushing to spray herbicides, to keep weeds out, or worrying about insects damaging crops and having to spray pesticides. For instance, Brian Scott a farmer in Indiana, when corn root worms starts indulging on his organic crops, the worms will cause a significant damage before he can react accordingly and eliminate the problem with the use of chemicals. These corn root worms won't affect Scott's insect resistant GMO corn because the pesticide is always in the plant. In addition, the GM corn was created only to harm a small group of insects and this allows for other beneficial insects to survive and assist the crops, since Scott did not have to spray pesticides. Farmers use GM crops mainly because of a reliability issue, not only are biotech plants easier to maintain, but they are less likely to cause a devastating loss. To a point where even insurance companies will provide farmers with lower premiums. Troy Rausch, another Indiana farmer, states "... when you're delayed by a couple weeks by rain like we were this year, the GM traits come in awfully handy for weed control". The GM traits are of much benefit to Rausch as they eliminate the need for him to utilize his time and combat against pesky weeds. The use of GMO's in the agricultural space eliminates many risks that would be common in conventionally bred