The Plot to End Farming

The April 1, 2024 session of the IPAK-EDU Director’s Science Webinar featured the research of Alexis Baden-Mayer. The research she presented is both eye-opening and compelling, woven around a timeline of people and organizations, stretching back from the end of the 19th century to the present.

Here’s a clip from the webinar: meet Alexis.

The title of the talk is evocative and full of intrigue. Upon hearing the title of the talk, some reacted with incredulity and skepticism. The word plot can be a trigger, certainly. The implication is one of a secret and nefarious conspiracy, which sometimes evokes a reflex response, depending on the subject matter.

It’s an interesting word to reflect on.

The word plot is fascinating because outside the realm of storytelling, it comes to us from Old English (‘small piece of ground of defined shape’) and the origins are for the most part unknown. It is also related to the Middle English plat which retains the sense of defining an area of land, as in a plat map.