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All Over Creation 2003. by Ruth Ozeki. Viking,
420p.
In 1872 from a rare potato seed ball, Luther Burbank planted 23 seeds. From two
of the resulting plants, all our baking potatoes have descended. Since potatoes
are propagated from pieces of a tuber containing an eye, all white baking
potatoes are genetically identical to those two plants. Monocultures are
particularly vulnerable to pests. These potato clones are even more vulnerable.
Engineered potatoes make pesticides that evolved in bacteria. When potato
beetles eat these, they fall over dead.
Using the vehicle of a novel, Ruth presents information about the genetic
engineering of crop plants. She focuses on the potato in Power Co., Idaho. She
creates uncommon characters whose paths cross in Power Co. There in the 1970's
the Fuller family grew many acres of potatoes and one rebel daughter Yumi.
In the 1990's an old Winnebago named Spudnik that runs on burnt cooking oil from
fast food restaurants provides a home for loose, lovable hippies, the ‘seeds of
resistance’. The ‘seeds’ conduct “actions” to educate shoppers in supermarkets
about changes to unmarked genetically engineered foods. They camp on the Fuller
farm helping the aged Lloyd, ill with heart ailments, and Momoko, ill with
Alzheimer's. Appropriately the ‘seeds’ revive Momoko’s seed bank from which she
sold seeds. With Yumi and her children they stage a great Idaho Potato party,
reminiscent of the Boston Tea Party.
This book is naughty and nice, fun and educational.
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