The End of Hunger

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.