The Future of Food
Every Tuesday morning people would always be seen trekking towards the direction of the sunrise with their bags and some with cartons. To a visitor in the village, he or she would be confused and would think that the usual long line of people was going closer to the sun just to stare at its beauty. In the village, every morning the sun would always be seen up in the sky with beautiful horizon before it turns wild. None would be seen wasting time in the way as every footpath was marked in the same direction. Other paths in the village were less important, and their weather-beaten status recognizes this. The grass is all over and even walking through them becomes difficult because of the morning dew, which is always too much.
Well, the village was known as peasant village. It was named the peasant due to its historical background. Very long ago people could work tirelessly on their farms in the village but still they could not harvest enough crops to take them throughout the year. Some would even think that the old fathers cast the community. Even though the people in the village still faced difficulties in their lives, at that time some would say in comparison that things were becoming better though at a slower pace. At least one in every ten families would be seen benefiting from the village as they had children in schools though they faced difficulties in paying tuition fees. Getting food in the village in the village was a problem, and it seemed technical to eliminate the problem. In there was a family with two children plus the parents. The father in the family was known as Hassan but was always referred by people in the village-by-village name as ‘Faire’. It is because he saw as the only hard working person in the peasant village and he had one son in the university. The wife was known as Wodon. ‘I will have to study food technology,’ Says Derrick. Hassan’s son would always be hard saying the same words wherever their crops failed to give the best harvest. Derrick was Hassan’s son.
After completing his studies, he had to come back in the village to share his knowledge with people in the community on how to boost food production. One day he organized a community meeting to teach people from the peasant village on the future food production methods. Before the very day for the meeting, he would be seen walking from household to another to convince people to attend the meeting. From the young to the old later got the message and promised to come. It was merely two weeks to the meeting date. People in the village were euphoric because they were very optimistic that the long-awaited solution to their food problem was right at their doorsteps. As he walked to everyone, he kept on telling them that had come with a solution to their problem and that whoever attends the meeting would not go without food tomorrow. Not everyone got the interpretation of his statement correct; some even thought that he had come with ready food and that they would be given during the meeting.
Tuesday was right there as usually. As usual, a long line of a group of men, women and even children were on their toes towards the direction of the sunrise. It was a market day, and everyone was going to the market to sell his or her farm produce. It was very ironical that the village was known as peasant village, and yet people would be seen taking to the market their crops produce from their farms. It was a sign that they were moving away from the historical belief in that village, and they had started working hard and harder. However, extra work was required to modernize the crop production. It was forth coming, and it was scheduled to take place during Derrick’s meeting with the people from the village. In the village, men were regarded to be lazy and did not like work. Women were seen as the backbone of every family contrary to what should be the case. As early as morning hours Men could be seen drunk while women would be seen carrying with them tools going to their farms just to have something for their sons in the end and daughters who were very innocent of the situation.
Now the long awaited day for the meeting was with them. Very early at downtime, people would be hard whistling and shout Derrick’s name. Derrick! Derrick! The loud voice went in the air. It was merely meant to wake up those who are still sleeping. Future food! Future food! Next food! A second voice was heard shouting three times. At around 8.00am, there was already a huge crowd gathering at the venue where the meeting was to take place. Just even from a distance, the people would be seen carry baskets ready to be given some food home.
Now the meeting had started, and this was thirty minutes passed the scheduled time. Derrick and some his friends whom he had invited were seated in front. Women seated at the back would be seen stretching their long necks to peep if there were sacks of food in front. Remember the whole peasant village was there in persons. You could not notice anymore the weather-beaten paths in the village; they were turned into use immediately as people from various parts of the community sought for shortcuts to the meeting point. In front where Derrick was sitting it was written in bold words, ‘‘THE FUTURE OF FOOD’’. Derrick started by greeting the congregation and after that delivered his message in the form of speech. Everyone was keen to grasp his points.
‘‘Ladies and gentlemen from peasant village: Good morning. ‘‘Good morning future food,’’ replies a drunken man. There was a big laughter from the crowd. To those who do not recognize me very well, I am Mr. Derrick Hassan from this village. After many years of struggle and hunger due to lack of food, a new down has come to us. When I was at the University, I did study ways of combating the problems, which face our methods of farming in this village. I was very passionate about this course because it was in my wisdom that one day I will have to save people from a community who has for many decades tried to have enough food but it has been in vain. You may have had about the word biotechnology or food technology, but you have not taken your time to understand it better. As you may have noticed many times, the crops that we plant in this village do not perform well, and this is seen after harvesting. The input that we usually supply is not commensurate to the output. At this stage, his speech some people had started making some movements and noise from their containers. ‘Listen to me carefully,’’ He cautioned the noisemakers. Quietness prevailed once again. At this time, those behinds were now standing on their feet.
Now it was time to receive and react to questions from the crowd. ‘‘Where is the food for future that we were told about?’’ an old man asked. The question brought a lot of confusion as every was seen a reaction that supports it. Those who carried with them polythene bags threw them in the air towards where Derrick sat. Even though we were mute to listen to your speech, you must give the food for tomorrow: somebody said from noise crowd. There was a drama as people expected to be given food that they could use future. However, the individuals who had attended the meeting realized that this was not to be the case.
In their argument, they complained that Derrick had informed them that they would no longer go without food after the meeting. It is what majority expected and is what they want. Within no time, some very energetic men were seen going to where the Derrick was seated. Without waiting for them to reach him, he swiftly stood up and started running away. The whole crowd busted in laughter. His coat swayed side, to side and the only object that could be seen behind him was a cloud of dust, but he was too fast for the people who were behind. Those who came to a long side him also followed the suit but in a direction. The podium later remained for the group who caused the havoc. Everything then was now in their control.
Not all who had attended the meeting were against him. Some supported his ideas and maintained their stand. They promised to put every idea into practice by moving away from the old way of planting their crops. It was to make them fat and have enough produce. It was to be their technology inflexion point. The agitation by Derrick to change to new technology caused confusion, fight, disagreement and lead to the destruction of properties. Therefore, the result is conflict in the society. It is because different people have differences of opinion of the technology. ‘The new hybrid maize that has flooded our market is the sole source of frequent diseases that we face today,’’ Says Hassan. Even the father disagreed with him on the topic. We have to continue embracing our old technology, and we shall not bow to any misleading idea, he added. A different stand of the father’s side was an indication that the same conflict would extend to family level. Hitherto, the havoc made some people to join opposition of the idea. Some even went ahead and gave examples of people whom they said died of cancer as a result of eating these foods manufactured biotechnologically and are sold mostly in the supermarkets.
Wodon, Derrick’s mother, was for his support, and she maintained that Derrick had gone to school and could not give the public a non-scientific idea. However, she could not show her support publicly as she feared that Derrick’s father could beat her. Later people turned their mind to the backing of the idea again just after it came to their knowledge that they have been eating technologically made food, and yet they have not developed any disease.
Once again, the market day was there, and people would be seen moving towards a similar direction. Mr. Hassan and his wife since long have been going to the market together. Immediately they had sold they produce they moved together to the nearest supermarket to buy some things for use at home. Mr. Hassan hesitated to pick some things, which he said were genetically made. The wife went ahead and convinced him. ‘‘Now you are disputing the genetically made food from the supermarket and yet not long before you used to eat enthusiastically!’’ the wife wondered. During that period that the knowledge about genetically engineered food was availed to the people in the village, the Supermarkets in that market recorded low profit. Even though the man got convinced at that place, they still differed on what to eat.
With continued use of the new food products, none has fallen victims of the rumored diseases. The people in the peasant village later became convinced that the technologically made food are not as such and went ahead to adopt the same though at a slower pace. Still they feared that there could be some hidden consequences later in their life. The people have had to make hard choices about going back to food manufactured after disputing the first opinion. They have to make multiple comparisons between the conventional food and the produced food wherever they go to the market.
After not very long, another meeting was held and this time, round the village elder chaired it and the chief aim was to reveal what they had learnt. He noted that after many months interaction of people in Peasant Village with the technology, they finally concluded that there is immense hope in the food for future as they have nutritious calories. The diets and tastes of those who do take part in sports or health activities changed drastically in the village. They realized that they were heading towards food where an individual will entirely decide on what to eat and will not be influenced by their peers. ‘‘Unfortunately, in the villages where a severe lack of food will still be experienced, all these will rarely make significant meanings,’’ the village elder noted. At this round, not many attended as many ignored the meeting not because they still hate the food from new technology but because they saw no reason to attend after knowing that such foods have harm in their life.
In their meeting, they further noted that proliferation of food production technologies has overcome the obstacles of small nutritious diet time for its output and space for production. On the other hand, the conventional approach has been mask by obstacles of time and lack of enough space to produce such food. They revealed that peasant village and outlived its usefulness to a high food production because of lack space to do the same. One would solely think that these technologies tools are used to reveal and understand the nature of our food, meet farmers all over the world, maintain and strengthen relationships between farmers and technologists
They added that some technological advances in food production cause shyness, distraction, stress and increasingly discourages concerns for food utilization. We have come to learn that this village can go beyond this level if we ignore rumors that read from the social media and television because some of the advertisements are baseless and have confused many.
The quantity and quality of the association often leave people feeling impaired.
In this peasant village, beliefs are likely to limit social revolution and fail to adopt it entirely. It will be important to relook into technology as socially appropriate and accepted by all behavioral characters about digital interaction, they collectively agreed. Hassan, who was at the meeting, said that people in the society are at a point in life where only a few have accepted critical thought to new realities created by technology. The section carefully re-examines a few food technology approaches that influence human behaviour. They also acknowledged that people have failed to keep in mind that food technology is just an example of a few technologies that improve our lives in the end.
Further revealed in the meeting were that the use of food technology sites on the internet has both positive and negative consequences; It is astonishing how someone can find a positive effect of technology on the web other than people. Before they concluded, the meeting the village elder gave his final speech. In addition, the statement read in summary:
‘‘Spread of negative views through networking sites enabled reconnection has reduced the adoption of technology remarkably. In a society where people have been misinformed through the internet, it appropriate and convenient to remove the notion through the practical application of the technology. However, someone needs not look far to discover problems associated with technology. There are debates all over about whether technology applied in manufacturing can cause the alleged consequences. Perception is at some point a hidden reality. It always looks like a real problem, which the people have grappled.’’ Finally, there was a sigh of hope that none other Mr. Derrick has solved the great-entangled problem.
