The End of Hunger
They’ve
done it, local botanists solved the problem of hunger! Ludzu can now grow
anywhere without human care. The highly nutritious plant can flourish all
throughout the Earth with little to no tending. They’ve spliced genes from the
prosperous Kudzu plant with genes from Lima beans. The lime green plant grows to epic proportions
in less than a week. The fruit of this remarkable plant can feed a family for a
week, the vine can feed them for two. The poor can now feed off of the ever
flowing vine to ameliorate their hunger.
However,
combating one problem soon led to another. Ludzu grew to one hundred feet in
height, could it be eaten fast enough? The towering vine soon blotted out the
sun, climbing trees, choking them out and reaching even higher. Low flying
transporters had difficulty circumventing the heaven reaching vines and had to
weave and dodge. Green expanses over
took and conquered many of the crafts, parked at their space ports, sealed in.
The vines had an uncanny ability to work their way into buildings and
structures. People armed with chain saws and torches fought back the vines,
clearing the area for maybe a day or two, the vines always grew back. Scientist
contemplated importing a herbivorous beetle to wipe out the plant, but then
what would that do to combat hunger?
The
plant didn’t grow too well in Africa, something about the sweltering conditions
didn’t allow it to reach the same size as crops in America. When leaders and
scientists got wind of this, they saw it as an opportunity. Soon the vine was
chopped up and shipped overseas. Crate after crate of the massive plant filled
up cargo planes and boats.
The gift of Ludzu made its inventor
very rich. He bought yachts and mansions. He purchased fleets of space crafts.
It was said that he even had a house on the moon. He was dubbed the savior of
his time, creating something glorious that ended one of the world’s problems.
But he was unhappy, even after winning the Nobel Peace Prize. He became a miser
and a shut in, shying away from public attention and fanfare. He was now the
J.D Salinger of his time, cursing his innovation for creating his horrible
life. People came to visit him, fellow scientists and innovators. He always
sent them away.
Then one day, a certain visitor
came to see him, he sent him away as usual. But this man was different. He said
to the inventor:
“My name is Mutumbo, I was raised
in a small village in Ethiopia. My neighbors were starving, I was starving. We
never had enough food for everyone, our meager rations went to the young, but
that was still not enough. Then one day, a transport landed in a field down the
path from our hut. We slowly approached it, not understanding what it was or
had for us. A hatch opened and down walked two pale faced men. They each
carried a box and placed them on the ground next to the transport. They
unloaded more boxes. Soon the entire transport was unloaded and they pried open
the boxes. Inside were nutrition bars of Ludzu, a plant, we learned, that came
from America, from your lab. From that day forward we had food every day. I
want to thank you sir.” He extended his hand to the biologist, who immediately
shook it and hugged the man from Africa.
The man’s story touched him, he
donated much of his money to fellow researchers and went back into the lab to
find more answers to solve life’s problems. The biologist went on to cure
cancer and AIDS. His work will never be forgotten, even after he dies.
