The Rise of Walsanto (Self-Inflicted Series Book 1) Page 5
The landing page for the site presented the visitor with a five slide presentation featuring Walsanto Seed’s new corn.
Slide 1: The corn plant originates from a wild grass called Teosinte, commonly called buffalo grass, and was selectively bred over many years by Native Americans from that grass to what it is today in the Americas. Corn grown as a crop made it possible for large numbers of people to live in permanent communities. They learned to grow and store enough corn as their food base to last until the next year’s crop came in. That meant that they didn’t have to move on when game grew scarce and the forage was used up. Corn was a game changer. Corn had made possible the development of civilization as we know it today.
Slide 2: Walsanto’s ability to “adapt” corn to grow virtually anywhere that the ground was not frozen for at least two months of the year, and that had water available, meant that Walsanto’s corn could do for the undeveloped parts of the world what earlier selective breeding had done for the Americas, but right away. The already developed places that had never been able to grow corn before due to too short of a growing season had nothing to lose, and everything to gain.
Slide 3: Highlights of all of the uses of corn were illustrated in a slide show, with pages of links offering to drill down to much finer detail on each. Over 5,000 examples of categories of products containing corn were listed, including some of which people would never have thought of, alcoholic beverages, bacon, batters, carbonated beverages, cosmetics, doughnuts, food coloring, ice cream, peanut butter, potato chips, shampoo, shaving lotions, soups, tomato sauce and vinegar were the handful of examples given, besides the obvious use of animal feed.
Slide 4: Food distribution is actually more of a hindrance to feeding the world than food availability. Arguments supporting this are given in a slide show describing the business economics and priorities of yesterday’s corn farmer and yesterday’s transportation methods and how the costs created distribution barriers, which caused food deserts and drove prices up.
Slide 5: Limiting or eliminating the need for the distribution of corn by the formation of vertically integrated local partnerships with Walsanto world-wide removes these barriers for today’s farmer. Local family owned farms would grow corn with seed supplied by Walsanto. They will not have to worry about buying seed, being able to sell their crop, or getting a fair price for it at harvest time. The price was already set. The next “customer” was already arranged. It was the local but small livestock Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation, or CAFO, that catered to animals able to be finished on corn, such as chickens, pigs and cattle. These family-owned and operated businesses would acquire feeder stock from local breeders who were also members of that local partnership. The CAFO owner had a pre-arranged customer waiting for a certain number of animals grown out under procedures provided by Walsanto, at an excellent price in the form of the local Walsanto store. The local store was licensed by the local government to slaughter, butcher and package, then retail the meat fresh and unfrozen directly to the local shoppers. A small slaughterhouse added to each location by the truck docks was all that was needed to make this happen. On-site inspectors were not required as per the agreement, further lowering costs. Customer satisfaction had guided best practices earlier in history, and this was seen as a move back in that direction.
This arrangement eliminated tremendous amounts of cost through simple efficiency. It would allow Walsanto stores to provide excellent quality meat, poultry and farmed fish at prices even better than when they had been buying it from the Chinese. It would be, at the same time, scalable to the local demand of each store. This was some of the cooperation from leaders all over the world that was mentioned in the press release the day before. It allowed each partner to make a higher profit on their product. It minimized risk to all. Since all funding was provided by Walsanto, no interest on loans had to be paid to the bankers. No farm subsidies were needed from governments. The whole farm to table thing for these meats, poultry and fish were very well planned across the United States, as well as around the globe.
In order to pull off a feat such as this, much planning, training, coordination and some very deep pockets were required. Walsanto had the deepest, and they had Rusty Whitman, representing President James, paving the way for them. Free enterprise farming would still be officially encouraged and applauded, but would no longer be subsidized.
As people worldwide read this, one thing became instantly clear. Competition would be tough. Farmers holding onto old ways, growing one crop per year, with no subsidies would be at a very large disadvantage. Prices would no doubt drop with the larger supply. That’s just the way supply and demand work. To “stay in the game”, they would just about have to play ball with Walsanto.
In the online homesteader groups based in the United States, most of the people were not very impressed with any of this. These ideas flew in the face of what they stood for and wanted to accomplish. While they had to agree that the procedures outlined were a vast improvement over traditional factory farming, they didn’t entirely trust this plan, but because it felt more like a giant farmers market, it did gain some appeal. So, the resolve to rebel loosened a bit in some homesteading circles. Turning the talk even more positive was the idea of growing your own and getting a paycheck for growing extra. The ability to support a family by growing for Walsanto appealed to the small farmer, most of whom had been working a regular job and then coming home to a multitude of farm duties.
Then, a curious thing began to happen. These Facebook groups were all global. While all of this wasn’t bad, it just didn’t sound like a big deal to a lot of Americans, but it really seemed to appeal to most of the rest of the world. People started joining homesteading and small farm groups in huge numbers from nearly everywhere. Of the nearly eight billion people on the planet, only a little over 300 million of them are Americans, so, by percentage, the Walsanto deal was a big deal. Even though Walsanto had stores in all major populaces, they had hardly scratched the surface of the possible number of customers that they could reach with walsanto.com. So, they did an incredibly smart thing. Walsanto promoted these homesteading and small farm groups in places where it didn’t have a foot in the door as the place to learn how to grow your own animals on a small scale, fed with the incredible corn, grown from the seed that could be purchased from walsanto.com.
The opportunity for a fast new food crop got the attention of people as well as leaders in poor areas of the world that never had enough to eat. The idea of growing their own meat, poultry and fish to feed their families sounded incredible. The idea of a new potential source for income on top of it was almost too much.
Walsanto would of course track where this was most successful and let this pave the way for them to open location appropriate stores at some point in the future, setting up even more partnerships everywhere they could. They were already approaching being the largest employer in the world, but this plan would certainly make them by far the largest contractor and the largest master partner in the world. And they were just getting started.
Chapter 8
Linden, Michigan
June 6, 2019
At the new Edan residence
Terry came in from out back to prepare his lunch. He flipped open the laptop and turned on CNBC on the TV. Share prices for WSFI were headed straight up. He and Cathy owned some in their 401K at work and the company matched every dollar they put into it 1:1 up to 6% of their gross pay. This caught Terry’s attention. The talking heads on TV were going on about how far Walsanto’s plans could take the company. Terry entered his account at Fidelity on the laptop and checked their stock. The price had been set at $10 when the new stock was issued. Between Cathy and him they had a little over a thousand shares. “$24. Whoo Hoo! I gotta talk to Cathy about getting more of this!” Terry said out loud.
That same thought was shared by many, many people that very minute. For anyone making boatloads of cash on their stock, it was going to be pretty rough to say anything negativ
e about Walsanto, especially if that person worked for them, or did business with them, which was just about everyone.
Checking in at Homesteads and Sustainability, which was their favorite Facebook homesteading group, the tone was mixed concerning the roll-out of the Feeding the World plan, but there was more acceptance of it than he thought there would be. Terry valued the opinions of the folks here, because the group actually functioned as more of a family than anything else. Cathy said that they’re “honest” with each other there when telling their mutual friends about it.
One person asked: “Growing two crops of corn a year that yield twice as much will let us grow four times as much feed on our land for our livestock, right? If we don’t have to BUY any feed at all, for say twice as many animals as last year, we’d be able to put up all of our own meat and sell a bunch too, right? What’s so wrong about that?”
Another chimed in: “Well I’m going to do it. The damned seed corn is already mostly all GMO anyhow. What’s the difference?”
Those two comments got thousands of Likes. There were a few who sang the praises of heirloom seed corn and keeping true to legacy growing and seed saving, but Terry noticed that there were fewer talking that talk than there had been just a few days ago. This new idea was really getting the attention of the average man and woman. Terry wondered at the wisdom of jumping on the bandwagon because he tended to be a sceptic. He lived by the Mark Twain quote, “Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.” He was really beginning to want to pause and reflect about this Grymsanto/Walters partnership and especially about all the hoopla about the new corn. He really didn’t have much choice except to work for Walsanto to earn his paycheck, and the stock price jump was amazing, but he never trusted the news media to tell the whole truth. He certainly didn’t trust all of what Walsanto was saying, despite the paychecks and the stock. On one hand, it was just what they needed to prepare for an early retirement so that they could concentrate on their homestead. On the other hand, it almost seemed like he was just buying the company line and going along with something that he wasn’t quite sure was right. He had an uneasy feeling down deep in his gut, but he was at a loss to know exactly what the problem was or what he could do about it, so he continued to browse Facebook for the opinion of others.
Jumping over to BackYard Chickens, Terry saw that a lot of new people, with newbie questions, were flooding the page. What everyone was talking about made sense, but Terry still had that uneasy feeling about it all. Having a huge increase in the supply of feed corn would make feed prices drop, making growing your own chickens for meat or for eggs cost less. You’d still be able to raise them clean, with no antibiotics or meds, and they were already eating GM feed anyhow. What did it matter, if there was no difference?
In spite of his initial reservations, Terry knew one thing for sure; he was going to order his chicks right away before the hatcheries sold out for the season. It looked certain to him that there was about to be a rush on chicks.
Speaking of chicks, he checked the Prepper Chicks page. He knew that there were some fellow skeptics over there, and his friends over there seemed the least trusting of this plan of everyone so far. Cathy especially liked this page. “Prepping for survival...a Girls point of View!” is their self-description. Terry knew that it was pretty popular with the guys too.
One Chick wrote; “I heard that the government was gonna tax the seed at 10%! That’s bull****!”
Another; “They gotta quit letting them screw with our food!”
Another; “I don’t like the looks of this. Corn is just the beginning. Soon, it’ll be everything. Once the other countries realize that one country is going to RULE the food industry, there’s gonna be a war over it!”
Now that last one was something that Terry could really agree with. It wouldn’t be the first time that large scale, all out wars had broken out over food or water rights someplace in the world. It had happened all throughout history. These girls had it exactly right. That’s why Cathy trusted them so much. They knew exactly what they were talking about.
He closed the laptop and headed back outside with chickens on his mind. Where would they put their chickens, so they’d be safe, convenient, but out of sight? He liked the idea of semi-earth sheltered housing for the animals. That would keep them warm in the winter, cool in the summer, and deaden almost any sounds. He had to make sure that they could get some sunshine and lots of fresh air too. He figured that putting the rabbits right next to the chickens so he could walk back and forth between the two sections through just a wire covered door would be the best for him, and safest for the rabbits when they had their young.
Since the nearest houses were on the east side of the property, and their land sloped uphill to the east, Terry chose to locate the livestock shelter most of the way to the east side, and to cover the east wall and roof with earth by digging it into the rise. Later, they would plant shrub willow about 6” apart in a line just east of the shelter to create an impermeable, edible hedge row between it and the nearest houses.
He sat down with the warm sun on his back sketching ideas to show Cathy. It made sense to them to put thin 12”x 12” cement pavers on the floor and to build a sturdy treated lumber frame around them to hold them together and in place, but not so tightly that urine and water couldn’t pass through the cracks. That would keep the animals from digging out and the predators from digging in.
It also made sense to build the east wall seven feet tall, so Terry could stand up straight on that side. Making an arch, from the top of that wall, heading west, down to the ground, would form the roof and the west wall all in one piece. They would use 16 foot long, heavy gauge, welded-wire hog panels, side by side, to form that arch.
They would cover half of the arch with green corrugated PVC roof panels tied directly to the hog panels. The assembly would create a roof just strong enough to support a very thin layer of sod and camouflage, making it virtually invisible from above or from the east. The remainder, they would cover in 1” by 1” galvanized 12 gauge welded wire, painted camouflage colors, tied directly to the hog panels. The shelter would be a code violation for sure, but so would the chickens and probably the amount of rabbits they planned for. The whole idea was for it to be covert. Terry believed that even good people would do bad things when they got hungry enough. Better to hide their food from everyone, than to be robbed of it, if anything ever happened in the future.
If they planted a couple of rows of shrub willow, spaced a foot apart that they coppiced annually ten feet to the west side of the shelter, they would provide food, shade and camouflage in the summer and allow more sunlight in the winter. It looked like a good plan.
Terry headed inside with a smile. “Time to get some dinner started,” he said out loud to himself.
Since they didn’t have the kitchen all unpacked and stocked yet, he turned on the electric skillet to heat up. A friend had been thoughtful enough to provide them with a few home canned goodies to get them through until they had everything set up. A little olive oil, then a pint jar of boneless rabbit meat went in to brown up a bit. One quart jar of homemade chicken stock and one pint jar of home-dehydrated stir fry vegetables. Reduce heat, cover, and walk away. He loved the simplicity of cooking this way. It was tasty, healthy, cheap, and above all quick to fix a one pan dinner like this.
When Cathy came in from work a short while later, she smelled the wonderful aroma coming from the kitchen and her stomach growled. She found Terry with his nose in her laptop and sketches spread out all over the table.
“Hey, handsome, how was your day?” she asked, “I’m starved.”
“Good Babe, I think I have some ideas you’ll like for the critter shelter.”
“What’re you reading that’s so interesting?” she asked.
“Just getting a materials list for the animal shelter idea together with some rough prices, so we can see what it would cost us to do. I’m glad you’re hungry. I’ve w
orked all day over a hot stove!” he winked.
Chapter 9
Walsanto Headquarters
Summer 2020
Camp Dodge, Iowa
Outside Camp Dodge, the Iowa National Guard base, at the new Walsanto Seed research center and Walsanto Food Systems headquarters, Rusty Whitman met with Michael Lawson, the CEO of Walsanto Food Systems to review progress on seed distribution one year after the public roll-out. Since the purpose of Rusty’s visit was to carry a report back to President James, Lawson put on a proper “dog and pony show” for him.
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“Good morning, Mr. Whitman,” said Lawson, opening the front door of the building himself to greet Rusty. “Have you been here since construction was finished?”
“Good morning back to you,” Rusty said with a smile, looking around at a rather small and unremarkable building to be headquarters of the world’s largest employer. “No, in fact I have not been here before at all,” he answered, looking for people, wondering where the heck everyone was.
“Is it a little different than you’d envisioned?”
“Yeah, you could say that,” Rusty chuckled, trying to remain polite. “Where the hell is everything and everyone?”
“Right below us of course,” Lawson said, rather amused, tapping his foot on the plain sealed cement floor. “I assumed that you were familiar with the layout here. Forgive me.”