Field Agent by Dom Testa

Author:Dom Testa [Testa, Dom]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Profound Impact Group, LLC
Published: 2020-12-14T16:00:00+00:00

Jaclyn Stone wasn’t the greatest speaker, certainly not on the level of Jason Deele, but the stunning visual accompaniment made up for her shortcomings. They’d even invested in professional lighting to bathe her in a warm, soft halo that stood in fine contrast to the bright, dazzling display on the screens.

The key points of her thirty-minute presentation could be condensed into a relatively-short summation. But the whole purpose of the meeting was to engage the hearts and minds of people with very deep pockets. These were hearts and minds used to being wooed; they’d built up a wall of skepticism that a traditional PowerPoint display could never assail.

What the people in the seats most wanted to see and hear was that their money would finance an operation guaranteed to return the investment many times over.

Stone began her talk by laying out a brief history of the soybean, from its domestication in ancient China to its spread around the world, and to its eventual explosion as a top export. Videos showed a few graphs to drive home her data, but mostly concentrated on the people involved in the cultivating and harvesting of the crops.

She spent several minutes exploring the connection between science and soybeans, tracing the plant’s earliest breeding all the way forward to the modern laboratory. Genetically-modified versions helped catapult the product into one of the world’s most valuable commodities. By the end of that portion of her talk Stone had pretty well established not only the history of soy’s market value, but had clearly defined what the future of the market looked like.

And it was sizable. I knew the numbers were big, but her estimates for future growth were eye-popping.

This is where she paused, as if letting the numbers settle in the minds of the audience. When she spoke again, her tone—and the images flashing behind her—were considerably more grim.

Pictures of wilted crops, dying fields, and destitute farms. They were like modern images inspired by scenes from the Great Depression of the 1930s.

I saw the silhouette of Sarah Eklund in the row in front of me. She shook her head, agitated by the scare tactics, I was sure.

“So what’s the answer?” Jaclyn Stone asked. “You might say we need better forms of pest control. Or we need better ways of managing our water tables. Or we need updated methods of crop management. And all of that is true. Those things can help.”

She stepped to the side of the lectern, removing the microphone from its stand and carrying it with her. It seemed like a well-rehearsed stage move.

“But the truth is, we need much more. Because no matter how we try to predict what type of parasite might do harm, something could easily slip past us. And as you’ve seen, the fallout would be utterly disastrous. Supplies for livestock could vanish, and what would that do for the overall food market? Supplies for fuel oil could dry up, and I think you know what that means for markets globally. When food and natural resources become scarce, desperate people have been known to do desperate things.

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