The Botany of Desire Potatoes

The Botany of Desire – Potatoes Spring 2011

This dvd is on reserve at the PC library – you must check it out with your library card, and watch it in the library. Submit the completed questions to me via e- mail.

More information on “The Botany of Desire” can be found at: http://www.pbs.org/thebotanyofdesire/

1. Why does Pollan say the potato represents our desire for control? What characteristic of the potato fulfills this desire?

2. How many different Peruvian potato varieties are there?

3. Why is there so much potato diversity? Of what advantage is this diversity?

4. How might potato diversity contribute to disease resistance in the potato plant?

5. What aspects of the local Peruvian environment selected for such a wide diversity of potatoes?

6. While originating in Peru, explain all of the reasons why the potato was so desired in Europe, especially Northern Europe?

7. How did the potato’s genetic diversity from Peru contribute to its ability to grow in N. Europe?

8. What two foods made a nutritionally “complete” diet for the Irish?

9. What was the problem with how the Irish farmed potatoes, compared to the Peruvians?

10. How did the fungus infect Ireland’s potatoes? How long did it take for the fungal infection to spread throughout Ireland’s potato crop?

11. What is the most popular fast food in the United States?

12. Explain how McDonald’s might be forcing farmers to repeat the same mistakes that were made in Ireland. What could happen to the McDonald’s potato crop?

13. Interpret Pollan’s statement: “A monoculture on the plate leads to a monoculture on the land.”

14. What did the Monsanto Corporation develop to combat the Colorado Potato Beetle? How did they do it? That is, what did they actually do to the potato, at the genetic level?

15. Why does Pollan think that Monsanto’s potato needed to be labeled for the public?

16. Why did the New Leaf potato that Monsanto developed face such opposition? What were people opposed to? The Botany of Desire – Potatoes Spring 2011

17. How have the bugs which infect cotton plants responded to the genetically-modified Bt cotton plants in Arizona?

18. Other than pesticides or genetic-modified plants, what is another way to deal with minimizing pest infections of plants?

19. Explain how potato farmer Mike Keith still makes a profit, despite the fact that his farm grows much less than monoculture farms do, and his labor costs are higher than theirs are?

20. What does Pollan mean when he says that we are casting evolutionary votes for plants?