The Botany of Desire Page #10

Came here from new zealand,

Where his passion

for growing cannabis

Had run him afoul of the law.

We sell everything

for the home grower here,

From the smallest set-up

To really large set-ups.

And included in that is

as much of the high-tech stuff

This one's

a nutrient monitor.

These are obviously

for two lights,

For four lights,

for six lights, eight lights.

This goes right up to

100 lights, if you so require.

That is a second timer.

Sometimes we need to have timers

right down to the second.

This is a camera.

And it's the same sort of camera

you would buy

From the spy shop for spying

on your wife or whatever.

In this case, we're spying

On our crop and making sure

people aren't coming in and out.

You can also buy seeds.

You can buy, you know,

all female seeds

Of any given strain you want.

They're out there

in little six-packs,

Just like at your garden center,

selling petunias.

I don't think

there would be

A plant on earth that comes near

to the amount

Of equipment and technology

Available to grow it

to its potential.

It's more than just a hobby.

It's a whole life's work.

Some people --

that is their whole life.

They're so enthusiastic

about their so-called hobby.

It's unexplainable.

It's not just something

about drugs or money,

But there really is

a deep fascination

With the marijuana plant.

The way

I see plants,

They're just as advanced

as we are,

From an evolutionary

point of view.

While we were working on

Consciousness, language,

tool-making,

All these things we judge to be

so wonderful and important,

They were working on

different tools.

And their tools are just

as sophisticated as ours.

The fact that this plant,

cannabis, for example,

Can actually change the texture

of consciousness -- you know,

This is ingenious.

We would not be the same,

if not for cannabis.

And cannabis certainly

is very different

For its relationship with us.

It's one of the great winners

in this dance of domestication.

Looking down

at it from the air,

You might not guess that

southern idaho is a desert.

The big green circles

are crop fields.

They get their water from

a vast irrigation system

Of underground pipes

and giant sprinklers.

This is one of the most

productive farm areas

In the United States,

And one of the principal sources

Of a food crop that feeds

millions of people --

The potato.

The desire, I think,

that the potato

Has evolved to gratify,

in large part,

Is our desire for control --

control over our fate.

It gives us that by providing

An immense amount of food

per acre.

An individual with half an acre

of potatoes

Can grow enough food

to keep himself alive

Or his family alive

for a year.

It's kind of extraordinary.

When you lift up the soil

and you see these

Beautiful potatoes

that are so nutritious

Growing underneath them, it's

just -- it's really, you know,

Exciting to see how productive

and how amazing this crop is,

That it can take

this little tiny plant

And produce this great food.

The story that we've

been telling so far

Is the story

of the symbiotic relationship

Between humans and plants.

But with the potato, we enter

Into a very new chapter

in that relationship --

The genetic modification

of plants.

For the first time,

we are taking

Genes from one distant species

And introducing it into another.

That represents

a real quantum change

In our relationship to plants.

Our relationship

to the potato

Began in the andes mountains

of south america.

In places like pisac in peru,

People have long depended

On the potato for survival.

To make sure they grow

enough potatoes,

They've developed

an astonishing degree

Of agricultural creativity.

We reckon that there are

More than 5,000 different potato

varieties in the andean region.

There are tremendous

combinations

Of colors, as well as shapes.

You find very elongated

potato tubers

That don't look potatoes

at all,

To very, very strange,

With very different

protuberances,

That look very,

very strange to you.

It was in the andes

that peopleces,

First domesticated the potato

plant around 8,000 years ago.

To do that, they had to overcome

a big obstacle.

The potato in the wild

is poisonous.

You know, it's one of those

crops that produces solanine,

Which is an alkaloid

which is poisonous.

And, in fact, potatoes

still produce it, by the way.

If you allow your potato to get

exposed to light

And it turns green,

it's producing solanine,

And you shouldn't eat it.

But in the plant world,

There are always

exceptions to the rule.

Genes inevitably mutate,

and plants change.

People did a lot

of trial and error,

Tasting potatoes

and spitting them out,

Or getting sick.

And then, eventually,

you find one --

Like, "hey, this one

doesn't have that taste.

Maybe this one's all right."

And those would be

the potatoes that we would save.

Over time,

the peruvians achieved

Great success as potato farmers,

Not by trying to control nature,

But by adapting to it.

Whenever you're moving

up in altitude,

You're having a radical change

in climate.

And one side of a hill will have

A very different climate

than another.

The way the early peruvians

dealt with that

Was to grow many different

varieties of potatoes

And preserve the diversity,

so that on a plot

Of this kind of facing

toward the sun

At this kind of altitude,

you plant this one.

And on this plant -- just on

the other side of the hill,

You plant this potato.

And this was a way of gaining

control over their fate.

Because if something happened

On that one plot

at that altitude,

They would still have

other potatoes.

The andean region has many

niches for growing crops.

And the potato was able

to adapt to different areas.

That's why there were

so many varieties

Developed for different uses

and different purposes

Along the andes.

Faustino pacco is 24.

His family has been growing

potatoes here in the andes

For hundreds of years.

These andean farmers

are the descendants

Of one of the great

civilizations of history --

The incas.

They presided over one

of the most sophisticated

Agricultural systems on earth,

Based in large part

on the potato.

But when the spanish invaded

in the 16th century,

They destroyed the inca empire

And set the potato --

and our relationship with it --

On a new phase of its journey.

When the potato got to europe,

It changed the course

of european history.

Before the potato,

The northern tier of europe --

the population was

Relatively small and was held

back by regular famines

Caused by failures

of the grain harvest.

The further north you go,

the dicier it is to grow wheat.

And so the center of gravity

in europe before the potato

Was the mediterranean, where you

could grow grain more reliably.

The potato did very well

at the more northerly areas.

It did very well

in wetter areas.

And it did very well

in really poor soils.

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