FACT: AMARANTH IS GOOD

At times the provocative and "crafted narratives" of the five families of the oligopoly, accompanied by clever graphics and of course, the underlying "fear mongering" and self serving calculations of the "Malthusian 2050" benchmark seem willfully absurd.

Others still feel --as if-- the thinking is generated from a group of folks being wheeled about on dollies in a cavernous solarium, each ranter strapped in by straight jackets and with a hockey mask affixed to their face.

Today my complaint with these folks is their persistent intellectually incongruous and emotional coercive measures asserting we must "give farmers a fighting chance" (Arkansas) in that Amaranth is a menace to USA farming and our diet. Notwithstanding the legacy history of the USA (or any number of countries) now consuming Amaranth, in the course of more than 6000 years.

The actual conflict in this situation arises from the view of Amaranth by Engineered Seed / Synthetic "growers" and the inability of the AGchem oligopoly (so named by the Wall Street Journal, not me) to rationalize the assault on Amaranth and the failure of glyphosate to do so and therefore AGchem doubles down using even more potent doses. Even though there is evidence that Amaranth will prevail in any event. The real issue: what happens in the interim?

The AGchem "synthetic commodity growing" industry leadership persistently whine about the need to edify the public. Or, they maneuver to assume the role of "Yoda" with the Nature Conservancy and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation (to mention only two) as those institutions position to be the intellectual depository of millennial design thinking for environment, ecology and economy equipoise.

Educated and otherwise informed people have engaged in conversation on this topic and endlessly, but without action. The eradication of a robust plant such as Amaranth, for the purpose of sustaining a synthetic system, is or should be alarming. It should be a primary news topic. Moreover it should be the topic of - studies -- as it was in the 50s 60s and 70s and into the 1990s where universities such as Purdue were forward thinking on its uses. Then, suddenly, such research and attention ceases abruptly. We then pivot into an Engineered - Synthetic system, propped up with hundreds of billions of government dollars. The heartland politic wants less regulation and government out of its life with the exception of subsidies. Less regulation provides cover for moving their favored synthetic - robotic agenda and Two Sided Market system forward.

Farmers are intellectual hostages with a "Stockholm Syndrome" like alliance with engineered seed and synthetic input systems claiming to "assure certainty". This is nonsense. Absent subsidies these farms would have died. Commodity scale growing can be achieved naturally and synthetic technology systems kill nature. Such systems pave the way to full automation and Precision Ag with more intensity and an added layer in CRISPR.

However, that scenario includes -- no -- farmer. No farm labor. Limited technological jobs. No Rural community or socio-economic base.

Killing off native species of high value and legacy, to promote a synthetic - technology system is insanity. Setting aside any argument on commerce, or climate and such, look to the degradation of our Biodiversity. For human beings biodiversity is a requirement for the future. The diminution of biodiversity impacts our Ecosystem and its integrated services in permanent ways. That anthropogenic gap is being filled by AGchem Synthetic growing and the oligopoly patents with the five families of the oligopoly controlling production and food.

I am certain many will consider this hyperbole. However, Investors, Land owners, Agrarians and the citizenry need to ask themselves very difficult questions. Then, they need to act, with vigor, discipline and resolve.

Question: who is running the Soil Program for The Nature Conservancy?

Question: who are among the influential(s) on the CE100 for Ellen MacArthur Foundation?

It is interesting that in those outcomes a Monsanto executive is “leading” the Soil initiative at the Nature Conservancy. This while TNC raises funds from the public under a flag of protecting Nature. The Ellen MacArthur Foundation populating their CE100 with BASF, DOW-DuPont (and others) who promise their repair and ecological magnanimity for 2030 or 2050. In the latter’s case there are issues of plastic and chemical dumpsites.

Incongruous is actually -- tame -- as a descriptor, given the lineage of – previous – promises wherein these enterprise constructed plans on reduction and stewardship with unmet goals in 2005, 2010, 2012, 2015 and so on. Talk? Seminars? The campaign for "common ground" with synthetic inputs into soil? Nonsense.

So, with the the foregoing as a modicum of background, let's return to Amaranth.

Fact:  The stimulus for American Amaranth production and marketing was initiated by the Rodale Foundation and the Rodale Research Center in -- the mid 1970s. The interest stimulated by the Rodale Foundation led to the establishment of the American Amaranth Institute in Bricelyn, Minnesota, and numerous Amaranth marketing companies, several dealing exclusively in the purchase, milling, and distribution of amaranth products. (Stallknecht, G.F. and J.R. Schulz-Schaeffer. 1993).

Fact: In the ensuing 15 years, (through to 1990) the Rodale Foundation work lifted American amaranth from an obscure plant to a robust, usefully productive recognized grain. (Amaranth: The Once and Future Crop, Jonathan B. Tucker. 1986).

Fact: In 1996 Robert Meyers called Amaranth as ".... widely adapted, tolerant of dry conditions, and diverse germplasm and available for breeding to improve the crop. Amaranth has relatively good yield potential for a high protein grain crop, especially considering the lack of breeding with the crop. It can be grown successfully with conventional grain crop equipment, usually with only minor modifications, and has a production cost comparable to other grain crops. The colorful appearance of the crop and its colorful history continue to generate interest in the crop, and its good nutritional characteristics combined with its variety of potential uses illustrate the importance of continued work with this "rediscovered" crop..."

What? What happened?

Fact: there are 4 million acres of farmland that have been destroyed or contaminated by a dicamba drift in the Southern USA States. (Previous Arkansas reference).That is a catastrophe through any lens and the focus of a failed attempt to eradicate Amaranth in Soy fields.

Fact: Amaranth, a high protein, mineral and vitamin leaden ancient grain was the centric diet staple in many preceding cultures. Amaranth compares nutritionally to all other grains and contains far more iron, calcium, protein, manganese, fiber, and other phyto-nutrients than wheat or rice. Speaking of rice, Amaranth leaves contain some of the highest levels of beta-carotene and lutein, higher than chicory and endive.

Fact: Amaranth is one of the most protein-rich of any plant-based food, rivaling that of animal-based foods, such as cheese. Amaranth remains a native crop in Peru, and is grown in Africa, India, China, Russia, South America and parts of North America. Currently, the Amaranth profile is gaining influence, use and popularity juxtaposed to Quinoa and as wider awareness of its astonishing health benefits emerge.

Fact: Amaranth is an efficient grain crop, growing in harsh and lackluster nutrient conditions, such as in light soils.

Fact: One cup of cooked amaranth contains 9 grams of protein, containing all of the essential amino acids present in meats and poultry. This makes Amaranth a “complete” source of protein, extremely beneficial to muscles and organs.

Fact: Amaranth includes benefits in cardiovascular health, is an anti-inflammatory, and is abundant in phytosterols having cholesterol-lowering capabilities.

Fact: Amaranth contains the highest known levels of beta-carotene and lutein. When you consider what the AGchem Synthetic oligopoly has done to the ecology, in the loss of Rice cultivars and in the massive totals of subsidies drawn down for the sole, 24 year long pursuit of shoehorning “Golden Rice” into a rationale, Amaranth looks like a miracle.

Fact: Amaranth doesn't like synthetics. In a 2016 study it was shown that Amaranthus responded positively to applied nutrients with the best performance obtained at higher rates of application of treatments. Pig manure at 90 kg N/ha was as effective as urea fertilizer. However, there was no significant increases in Amaranthus performance between urea fertilizer applied at either 60 kg N/ha or at 90 kg N/ha. For manure, the higher rate (90 kg N/ha), especially pig manure gave the best in all the growth parameters. Given its superior responses, pig manure at 90 kg N/ha could be a very attractive organic fertilizer alternative to inorganic fertilizer particularly for annual crops with short growth cycle such as Amaranthus. (The outcome then presented as a recommendation of pig manure in that growing agroecology or -- similar - agroecology).

Given that Amaranth is robust and successful in diverse growing zones and conditions, it seems a facile conclusion to draw to its value agriculturally, forage purpose, ecologically, medicinally and commercially. The incontrovertible and inescapable fact is that Amaranth as a leaf and grain is among the most robust and versatile of our indigenous plants. It is proven to be among our most nutritious vegetable-based protein.

One of the brilliant members and elegant thinkers on my Team in my Natural Resources Agriculture project was born and reared in Nepal. There, she harvested and cooked meals with Amaranth for most of her early life. She has shared the stories of her home where Amaranth leaf is consumed or used as cereal grain or grain flour (gluten free) is a perfectly acceptable consumption staple. All to the benefit of their better health and well being of which she is a glowing example.

In the final analysis however, it seems completely mad to set forth in destroying such an abundant plant and to base that pursuit on the hyperbolic promotion of an arguable desire for increased synthetic intensity in the “commodity growing” process. A separate thought is: where has the research gone? Why the erasure of historical facts and work?

These are only a beginning set of –facts—regarding Amaranth.

There are more and more may follow. My team of experts and scientists, who will evolve my concept through biology, botany, horticulture, research, crop science and fieldwork, will farm Amaranth. We will do so naturally and with the compost we create and the manure from our Hogs.

In sum, and to all the AGchem oligopoly; this, in small part, is what edification reads like. My hope is others who see madness in eradicating Amaranth will bring their facts to bear as well.

Along with any recipes, please.

(C) 2018 Frank Flynn and Dreamland, in this fixed form of opinion

Partial references in support of positions put forth in this opinion

• Teutonico, R.A. and D. Knorr. 1985. Amaranth: composition, properties, and applications of a rediscovered food crop. Food Technol.
• Kauffman, C.S. and L.E. Weber. 1990. Grain amaranth. p. 127-139. In: J. Janick and J.E. Simon (eds.), Advances in new crops. Timber Press, Portland, OR.
• Breene, W.M. 1991. Food uses of grain amaranth. Cereal Foods World 36:426-430.
• Bressani, R., A. Sanchez-Marroquin, and E. Morales. 1992. Chemical composition of grain amaranth. Food Rev. Int. 8:5-21.
• Clark, K.M. and R.L. Myers. 1994. Yield response in intercropping of pearl millet, amaranth, cowpea, soybean, and guar. Agron. J. 86:1097-1102.
• Elbehri, A., D.H. Putnam, and M. Schmitt. 1993. Nitrogen fertilizer and cultivar effects on yield and nitrogen-use efficiency of grain amaranth. Journal of Agronomy
• Kauffman, C.S. 1992a. Realizing the potential of grain amaranth.
• Kauffman, C.S. 1992b. The status of grain amaranth for the 1990's.
• Stallnecht, G.F. and J.R. Schulz-Schaeffer. 1993. Amaranth rediscovered. p. 211-218. In: J. Janick and J.E. Simon (eds.), New crops. Wiley, New York.
• Myers, R.L. 1994. Regional amaranth variety test.
• Myers, R.L. 1996. Amaranth: New crop opportunity. p. 207-220. In: J. Janick (ed.), Progress in new crops. ASHS Press, Alexandria, VA.
• Qureshi, Lehmann, Peterson 1996. Amaranth and its oil inhibit cholesterol biosynthesis in 6-week-old female chickens.
• Su Q1, Rowley, Itsiopoulos, O'Dea 2002. Identification and quantitation of major carotenoids in selected components of the Mediterranean diet: green leafy vegetables, figs and olive oil.
• Amaranth as a rich dietary source of beta-sitosterol and other phytosterols 2003. Marcone, Kakuda, Yada
• Andini, Yoshida, Ohsawa, 'Variation in Protein Content and Amino Acids in the Leaves of Grain, Vegetable and Weedy Types of Amaranths Agronomy 2013
• Iren, Udo, Asawalam, Osodeke 2016. Comparative effects of different nitrogen sources from organic manure and urea fertilizer on growth, crude protein and nutrient uptake of Amaranthus,