In this excerpt from his book, Michael Pollan discusses the many struggles a farmer has when growing crops, while Monsanto, an agricultural company, experiments with genetic engineering, creating harmless crops that can magically protect them self.
For the photo shoot next class, I think that it would be a smart idea to show a significant contrast between an organically grown potato and a genetically modified one (or one that looks like it anyways).
The article is talking about the issues of growing potatoes. The way companies grow potatoes using chemicals and many bad components that are not healthy for the human consumption. To solve this problem they want to start using less chemicals, they want to grow them more naturally. Also this new way to grow potatoes would be less expensive compared to the one that uses many chemicals.
The image I have in mind is having a potato that was grown with fertilizes and chemicals next to a one that was grown locally with no chemicals. Also having the potatoes with some roots growing out of it. I think this would work because I don’t think potatoes that were grown with chemicals are able to grow roots like the one that are grown with out chemicals.
The article of “The Botany of Desire” talks about how Monsanto is trying to control the production of these potatoes by claiming the rights to not let any farmers to reproduce the sprouts of the potatoes. Genetic engineering has allowed farmers to use an alternative method of organic products that no longer need the harsh chemicals to be able to produce these goods. So now all the negative effects that would normally be included into the food the populations consumes is taken out of the equation.
The ad is about how genetic engineering plants effect our agriculture
This book basically explains the whole idea of genetically growing potatoes and the need for this. For my photo ideas well i was thinking about having an uncooked potato next to cooked potatoes basically representing the end result of this genetically engineer potatoes.
The article is basically about how only Monsanto has the rights to mass produce potatoes because they own the rights to that strain and any tampering or regrowth of the potatoes is actually illegal to do so other farmers cant have there own kind of potatoes making Monsanto potatoes a monopoly.
I was thinking that maybe have a potato on a conveyer belt like as if its being cloned rather than grown leaving out the diversity because no diversity is usually not a good thing, thats where i’m at right now.
Genetic Engineering has met nature. Discontinuing the use of artificial components, Monsanto claims to use a different alternative to growing crops. The article, “The Botany of Desire”, explains that people have come to the conclusion that we cannot continue the way we do things when it comes to agriculture. Basically the point of the article is that we will be using genetic engineering to produce our patatoes because of all the negative side effects our current methods are having on our health and environment.
The story basically explains how the way the new generation found a way of growing plants through science , it is fast and a cheaper way but it isn’t the same results because it is being made by using chemicals.
For this article, it talked about how Monsanto is a monopoly that some of the corruption of how food is being made in the industry and how it impacts the food that we keep mass producing.
Some of my ideas I have is sorta show pieces falling off the potatoes and make it look like it has scares. I believe that would be effective because it really shows what food goes through in order to coexist.
To summarize this article, it basically states that Monsanto is aiming to control the agricultural industry. Currently farmers can plant only one generation of potatoes and not replant it because that would break the potato genes in production. Monsanto, instead of trying to go the organic route is going down the route of Genetic engineering and is trying to monopolize it by preventing anyone else from reproducing their method.
Certain image that come to mind would be a moldy potato that looks likes its dying. Another idea would be newborn plants in the foreground and the potato in the background.
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