Welcome to Food World Building Part 2: Of Humans and Plants

Happy Earth Day!

Spring seems to have finally shown up in my area. Trees are in bloom, robins are bouncing about, and hikers are soaking up the sun. We’ve had such weird weather lately that the plants around here don’t seem to know what to do.

Pick a season!

It does worry me though. March and April are usually the first months to start planting crops. The odd weather could cause problems for the growing season in my area.

Thankfully, my area isn’t completely dependent on the local farmers (though I highly recommend you support your local farmer). We’re able to import food from all over the world. I can get cheese from New Zealand, avocados from Mexico, and tea from India.

Crop failure is still something that can happen. The many people during the Great Depression of the 1930s were hit even harder when a dust bowl struck the main area of the United States where wheat is grown. A lot of people had to relocate because they could no longer feed themselves nor their families.

There are many reasons crops might fail. Locust swarms, volcanic eruptions, wild fires, droughts, floods, and erosion can all contribute to the loss of food sources. Many ancient civilizations built their culture around agriculture and blamed angry gods for the natural disasters that could destroy their crops. Demeter, Freyr, and Xipe Totec are examples of gods and goddesses who presided over agriculture or relate to the changing seasons.

Today, crop failure isn’t as likely as it once was in the United States, but that doesn’t mean that natural disasters and climate change don’t still pose a threat, though they aren’t caused by angry gods. There are still places where crop failure does happen and to devistating effects on the people in the area. Scientists have worked tirelessly to monitor these places that are most affected by disasters and climate change. Pesticides and even modifying plant genetics have been used to help prevent loss of crops.

Genetically modifying our food isn’t exactly a new practice.

When I was still in college, I took a class on agriculture and how it has evolved over time. There was an entire section on how humans have been selectively modifying our food science the beginning of agricultural practice. Evidence suggests that tomato plants were once very tiny, about the size of peas, but because humans liked having larger fruit to eat, evolved to become much larger. Corn has a green husk wrapped around its seeds. This doesn’t really benefit the plant as it needs the wind to spread the seeds to create the next generation, but it does benefit humans trying to keep birds and insects away from a staple food source.

This isn’t to say that I necessary agree with all modern practices surrounding genetically modified food. There’s a lot of controversy that I don’t want to get into, but I don’t think it’s a bad thing if scientists are able to help create a nutritious sweet potato that also doesn’t require a lot of water to grow, especially in areas prone to droughts. But the belief that the food we eat has always looked or tasted the way we think it does today, isn’t accurate.

Humans learned to cultivate plants through trial and error. Some plants that were once poisonous to us, such as almonds and apples, have become edible. We figured out how to irrigate crops even if it doesn’t rain everyday.

Apples were a later addition to the human diet.

So, if you are doing some world building in fantasy, science fiction, or historical fiction, don’t forget to include some information about the plant life. Which crops are staples of the culture’s diet? It’s usually some type of grain or starch like rice, wheat, corn, or potatoes. Are there any plants people have superstitions about? Does the culture have a god or goddess they worship specifically for agriculture or the changing seasons? Was there once a great disaster that caused major crop failure and led to a mass migration?

It might not seem that important, but small touches like that can really bring a fictional world to life. After all, much of human civilization centers around agriculture and our relationship with the plants that we eat. It’s fascinating how much we rely on plants for our society to function.

I hope you all were able to go outside and spend some time in nature today. Earth Day helps me remember that I’m thankful for the planet we live on and the wonders I find here. Please go out if you can and enjoy what our world has to offer.

If you enjoyed this post (or it really pissed you off), please like, share, and/or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope y’all like hearing from me.

Until next week.