Analysis of I) The Plant

As the name suggests, this entire chapter is devoted to providing all the relevant information on the champion crop - Zea Mays aka corn, came to power as THE industrial plant.

The journey begin at the supermarket. Tracing the food chain of everything from meat products (what the animals ate) to soft drinks (the sweetener used) - the author was astonished to find corn waiting at the beginning of of every single one of these chains is corn!


source: Ecotality Life

Which comes as very surprising, and it immediately reminded me of a movie that someone once told me; about an old B-movie portraying everything that in the world eat came down to a barrel of basic materials.

The Mexicans were known to be "corn people", their diet consisted of lots and corn -Tortilla, nachos, to parallel South East Asians are know to be "rice people" .

Yet for some bizarre reason, scientist found that there is a high percentage of "corn carbon" (corn takes in an extra carbon when it inhales) in a typical North Americans hair. How can this possibly be? I am willing to bet that most people in our society can not recall the last meal in which they had corn.

The inference drawn from this is that, we are bigger corn people than the Mexicans!


source: Filimadami

From here on the author presents the historical background on how corn came to be in North America, almost making corn sound like a "tool" rather than a plant in the process.

Corn, aka Zea mays, was originally just a simple grass in the fields of central America. Due to freak of evolution (bigger seeds) and sheer luck (discovered by hungry Indians), it spread its seeds with the help of native American Indians.

When the Europeans settler came in, their crops of the old world (wheat) did not grow as well as corn of the Indians. Doing what all good early colonist would do, they learned how to grow corn from the Indians, and they're lives are secure in the new world, they started to exploits the Indians. According to the author, corn indirectly contributed to the rise of European colonists and the downfall of the Indians.

Reminds me of a song by the heavy metal band Iron Maiden - Run to the hills.

The author than talks about how corn evolved into the way we desire it to. To be subservient of us in order to spread its seeds. This information is making wonder if the author wants us to question if we are using corn...or is corn using us? Which specie is the dominant one here?

To put in nail the coffin, the final set of facts presented allows the author to conclude that corn is the ultimate industrial "tool". Even the birthing process of corn allows for it to be an efficient industrial agent. Corn is able to inherent trains directly from parent plants, allows to better crops form cross breading. And ultimately defying laws of nature, and complying the laws of corporate science, the seeds of corn allows the crop to be "copyrighted" - forcing the farmers to buy seeds to corporations, making corn almost a machine-like quality.


source: Cincinnati Locavore

So how can the industrialist make the most of this handy tool? we're about to find out.