Michael Pollan, "Playing God in the Garden"

In his recent book, The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World (2001), the environmental journalist Michael Pollan has written the "biographies" of four everyday plants--apples, tulips, cannabis, and the potato--that he feels embody the way humans fulfill their desires through nature. The idea of assuming a plant's point of view first came to Pollan when he was working in his garden and realized that he and the bees swarming around him were doing essentially the same thing: they were both at work manipulating the environment to better serve the needs of the plants in his garden. And, in a paradigm shift, Pollan found himself wondering about the degree to which the plants themselves determined his actions by influencing his decisions over what seeds to put down, what to pull out, what to water, and what to cut back.

Pollan explains his shift in perspective this way: "Think of all the trees that have been cut down to make room for the grasses. It makes just as much sense to a Darwinian to say that agriculture was something that the grasses came up with to get us to cut down the trees." With this insight into the ways that humans and certain plants have coevolved, Pollan realized that one could read in domesticated plants a record of human desire: in the effort to refine the apple, Pollan discerns a partial history of human longings for sweetness; in the tulip, the search for beauty; in cannabis, the call of intoxification; and in the lowly potato, the subject of "Playing God in the Garden," the yearning for control. "Seeing these plants . . . as willing partners in an intimate and reciprocal relationship with us means looking at ourselves a little differently," Pollan believes. We must see ourselves, he goes on to say, "as the objects of other species' designs and desires, as one of the newer bees in Darwin's garden-- ingenious, sometimes reckless, and remarkably un-self-conscious."

Michael Pollan graduated from Bennington College and received his master's degree in English from Columbia University. The author of Second Nature: A Gardener's Education (1991) and A Place of My Own: The Education of an Amateur Builder (1997), Pollan has published widely on gardening, environmentalism, and architecture and is currently an editor-at-large for Harper's Magazine and a contributing editor at The New York Times Magazine.

Michael Pollan, "Playing God in the Garden," New York Times Magazine, 1999.
Digital image drawn from the Austin Chronicle's Books In Person web site. Quotations from interview by Maria Hong, Michael Pollan, The Austin Chronicle, V.20 N.39: Books: In Person, May 25, 2001; and Michael Pollan, introduction to The Botany of Desire, New York: Random House, 2000.

Links to Explore:

Monsanto Company: home page for the Monsanto Company, including a link to their own "Knowledge Center," which provides information about biogenetic engineering for the lay reader, and to a letter of reply from a Monsanto official to Michael Pollan's article.

"Behind the Organic-Industrial Complex": Pollan's most recent article documenting the growth of the organic food business. "A Plant's-Eye View of the World": Ketzel Levine's interview with Michael Pollan for National Public Radio, includes links to sites that Pollan recommends.

Food and Drug Administration: includes links to the FDA's discussion of biotechnology.

Frequently Asked Questions about Organic Farming: the Organic Farming Research Foundation's information page, which includes a link to Biotechnology Issues, where members of the organization voice their concerns about agricultural biotechnology and genetic engineering.

"Organic Alchemy": article by Ronald Bailey that challenges the claims that organically produced food is better for the planet and better for consumers and asserts that organic food could lead to the death of billions of people.

Questions for Learning:

• The Monsanto Company provides detailed information for the lay reader about the value of biogentic engineering. What are the main virtues of this technology, according to the company? When they receive criticism about the possible dangers posed by their products, what is their response? How would you describe the pedagogical approach of their Knowledge Center?
  

• In his letter of reply to Pollan's article, Philip S. Angell, Director of Corporate Communications for the Monsanto Company, sets out to refute the claims Pollan has made about the possible dangers of biogenetically engineered food. What do you make of Angell's response? Do you find this argument compelling or does it lead you to believe that Pollan was justified in his concerns?
  

• Pollan has said that the reason organic farmers are not happy with the argument he has to make in "Behind the Organic-Industrial Complex" is that "for a lot of these people it's important not just to make money but to be perceived as virtuous as well, and anything that casts any doubt on their sense of virtue -- I think that's very hard to take, and I can understand that." What do you make of the fact that Pollan criticizes both biogenetic engineers and those who are marketing organic products? If both of these routes are unacceptable, then how are the world's farmers to go about the business of feeding the world's population?

• Pollan's essay discusses the problems with trying to get labels put on food products that have been biogenetically engineered. In January of 2001, the FDA released a position statement on the voluntary labeling of bioengineered food products and requested comments and feedback. In light of Pollan's essay, what do you think of the proposal for voluntary compliance? If you were to write to the FDA on this matter, what would you recommend they do?
  

• In the past few years there has been a rise in public awareness and support for organically grown foods. Organic organizations have been working on educating the public of what genetic engineering means and what its possible dangers might be. Organic Farming Research Foundation is one such organization. What differences do you see between the way OFRR seeks to educate visitors to its site and Monsanto's approach to educating its visitors? What similarities do you detect? Granted that both organizations have an interest in protecting their approach to farming, would you say their approaches to conveying information differs significantly?

• Is Bailey's criticism of organic farming in "Organic Alchemy" comparable to the objections that Pollan raises in "Behind the Organic-Industrial Complex"? How could it be that organic food poses a threat to the environment?
  

Questions for Connecting:

• "We are human only in contact, and conviviality, with what it not human," David Abram asserts in "The Ecology of Magic." With Michael Pollan's "Playing God in the Garden" in mind, would you say that it is possible to have a "convivial" relationship with "what is not human" in the age of technology?

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