Ozeki Rough Draft

One Big Flow, But Not For The Farmers

In All Over Creation the character’s express a relationship to the environment based on both belief and necessity. There is a divide between farmers making choices out of immediate necessity and those on the outside who can approach the environment with more philosophy.

GM seeds offer farmers a way out of using pesticides and they embrace them out of necessity. Lloyd tells the Seeds:

“‘Margins are tight. Prices are down. You need higher yields to make a profit, and inputs maximize your yields. A lot of these fellas, they’re cash poor. Got their whole lives tied up in their land and one season’s harvest. Not a whole lot of room for error. It takes guts to try something new, as far as I can see.’

‘But when you listen to these guys, all they do is talk about how great the stuff is-’

          ‘Thats all it is’ said Lloyd. ‘Just talk. Deep down they know’” (146).

Cass and Will plant Nulifes because they are afraid pesticides are making them infertile, but they are reluctant to do so. Will advocates Nulifes to Cass. “‘But they say it’s safer than pesticides’ He was trying to reassure but his voice revealed the doubt that had been eating at him” (98).

For the farmers there is no room for identity to determine their relationship to GM plants. Only Lloyd takes a stand against them but he no longer is in a position of choosing between GM crops and pesticides. He essentially retired, and, preoccupied with little more than his seed business is free to take more of a philosophical attitude towards the environment. Lloyd writes in his news letter “Scientists do not understand Life Itself, and when they meddle in its Creation, they trespass on God’s domain. Beware of the ungodly chimera they manufacture in their laboratories!” (105). Lloyd’s pro-life beliefs fuel his anti-GMO beliefs but even among the other religious members of the town he is alone in openly condemning GMO’s- the others farmers must think about making a living.

Of course even the farmer’s “practical” decision to use GMO crops or pesticides  is not really practical. They choose pesticides because they are cheap but they have health drawbacks such as Cass’s infertility and cancer. The GM crops force the farmers to spend more buying new seeds each year but they are not reliably safe to consume. The seeds are against both, but as Will suggests Organic Farming doesn’t seem like much of a real option to the Potato Growers.

The idealism of the Seeds is based as much in their identity as Hippies as it is in a complete understanding of the farmer’s predicament. Even Geek who seems fairly knowledgeable reveals some ignorance when Will compares the use of GMO’s to being addicted to drugs and Geek shrugs, suggesting that he “just say no” (272). Quote about people not stopping eating GMO’s when labeled, just want the labels. The Seeds philosophy of going with the flow speaks to how their relationship to the environment differs from the farmers. They can simply move on, but the farmers must stay and make sure that each one of  their crops is successful. The Seeds are free to fight for the environment as a whole but the farmers have no option but to do what is best for their potatoes. Cass sums up what it means to have a livelihood based in the environment when she says that sometimes some creatures have to die so others can live (of course, those living are still paying a price as she well knows).