- Home
- Mike Crowson
Parallel Loop Page 12
Parallel Loop Read online
Page 12
The Price of Success
As early as 1992 some 64,000 transgenic animals (animals with the genes of more than one species)
were born in the UK alone, including some 'geep' part goat, part sheep.
Jonas M'bwanbi looked at the "shigs" jostling for a place at the trough and guzzling the food. There was no doubt that these crossed animals part pig, part sheep were fertile beggars. Sheep usually have one lamb and twins are regarded as a triumph. Pigs have a litter of young amounting to at least six and not unusually to eight or ten. Shigs were just as prolific in their numbers and this would solve his family's problems, that and the "waize" he'd planted.
The waize seed was rather expensive to buy, of course, because you could only buy it from the company that owned the patent, but it grew in a hotter, drier climate than wheat usually did and the flour cooked better than maize flour. He felt satisfied. He had used the last of his cash to buy four shigs from a man the agent had put him in touch with. At last his family would eat well and there'd be a lot of shiglets to market and some waize as well. They hadn't lived so well since the Americans stopped buying their pyrethrum.
His brows scrunched up and his nostrils dilated like those of an angry bull, at the thought of that little incident back in the early nineties. The insecticide pyrethrum comes from a plant related to the chrysanthemum. Some big company had genetically engineered insecticidal genes from pyrethrum in to a mid-latitude chrysanthemum plant, so the Americans could grow it themselves instead of importing it from the tropics. He and his mother had grown pyrethrum as a cash crop and, when the market for the stuff collapsed overnight, his family had struggled just to survive for quite a few years. They had been lean years.
He watched the shigs snuffling around after any food that might have spilled out of the trough. They'll eat almost anything, the agricultural agent had claimed, and he was right. The agent had explained that pigs had a much tougher digestive system than sheep. Tougher even than a goat or a "geep" and shigs had the same digestive system as pigs. He had nearly gone for two or three geeps, but the greater weight gain of a shig had decided him. But weren't these creatures prolific!
They weren't that attractive to look at. It was too hot for either sheep or pigs here, so he hadn't actually seen either, but he doubted if they were as odd and ugly as a shig. They were fat, hairy things that lumbered clumsily and generally rather slowly around, turning their whole surroundings to trampled dust - to mud whenever it was wet - into which they prodded and pushed their snub noses in search of food. They were dirty, smelly, snuffling things with a deep "baa" of a call. But boy were they ever breeders.
He supposed he had better go and fill in the survey form the agent had left. The original suppliers wanted to know how many live births there had been. Well, he'd plenty to report.
Before he left the shigs, Jonas topped up the water trough and checked the pen - the agent had referred to as a 'sty'. Satisfied that all was secured, he began to walk back, past the waize field, towards the house. He noticed that the slightly orangy heads were fat and ripe, ready to harvest. Tomorrow they would all turn out into the field and make a start on harvesting it. He would cut, his older son and older daughter could gather, while his wife, Ajuke, and his other daughter threshed. His mother liked to think she was helping, so she could lay out the bunches for threshing. It wouldn't make much difference to the speed of the operation, but they would kid her that it did. It was a good crop and this was going to be a good year. A few more like it and they'd be able to afford to hire a mechanical thresher. That would really make things easier.
The next morning, as soon as it was light, Jonas fed the shigs and then got out his sickle and a sharpening stone. He wanted to cut as much of the waize as he could before it got really hot. He was sure that it was getting hotter these days. Ajuke had just laughed on the occasions he had mentioned it to her. She said that it wasn't the summers getting hotter so much as him getting older. Probably she was right. Whether or not, he intended to start cutting early and take a longish break in the middle of the day.
By mid-morning he was ready for a rest and a drink. Jonas junior and his sister had been gathering the cut stalks of grain for hours and Ajuke had kept up with the threshing. It was going well enough to rest until afternoon. There was no likelihood of rain: the rainy season had been growing shorter in recent years. In the old days that would have been a problem, but waize didn't seem to need as much moisture as crops used to do.
The harvest took four days, although they could have managed it in less if there had been any reason to hurry. Close to the end of the fourth day the agricultural agent, Mr. N'Fufu dropped by. His elderly Landrover pulled up in a cloud of dust and he wandered over to the edge of the field, where he stood watching. His eyes followed the sacks of grain, fifteen in all, as one by one they went back to the house, though he did not offer to help move them.
"Had a good crop?" he asked , as Jonas neared the end of the job.
"Very good," Jonas answered.
"You get a good yield from waize. I told you so," said Mr. N'Fufu.
Jonas nodded. "So you did," he agreed.
"How are the shigs?"
"Breeding very well. I filled out a survey form for you. I'll just finish hauling these sacks to the house then I'll get it."
Mr. N'Fufu nodded as Jonas picked up another sack, heaved it onto his shoulders and staggered back to the house with it, straining under the weight. He still made no offer of help but leaned against the Landrover and watched until the last sack was on its way. then he strolled towards the shig pen.
A minute or two later Jonas joined him, carrying the survey form.
"I see you've had quite a lot of shiglets," N'Fufu observed.
"Thirty six." Jonas was as proud as if he were personally responsible.
"That's going to be a lot of money." N'Fufu was frowning slightly and his expression suggested that was some kind of problem. "The supplier's royalty is more than the selling price just at the moment."
Jonas looked puzzled. "But I bought them in a private deal. You put me in touch with the man yourself."
"Doesn't make any difference," N'Fufu told him. "If you own a shig you have to pay a royalty to the company for every live shiglet born." He paused. "It goes on for seventeen years from their introduction, that's another fourteen years. When the shig grows up and has shiglets itself, you pay a royalty on them too."
This wasn't good news to Jonas and it wasn't anything he had heard before. Certainly the agent had never mentioned it when he decided to buy the animals.
"How much do they want?" he asked.
"The royalty is twelve US. dollars for each animal born," N'Fufu answered.
Jonas did a quick calculation in his head. Thirty-six shiglets at $12.00 was $432. That was a huge sum. "What's the going price in the market?" he asked.
"Around $25 for a fully grown animal depending on condition," answered the agent. "Only about $4. for a month old shiglet though. There's no demand for the young ones."
Again Jonas was doing some quick calculations. $160 dollars for the full grown ones and $144 for the young. Perhaps $80 for all of the waize and $10 for his few chickens. Altogether his income would be under $400. He had the land, of course, but with no animals and no crop from it, apart from some lentil bushes on south edge, it wouldn't keep the family alive. He wondered how long the multi-national company would wait for their money. He might get more for the shiglets in six months. He asked the agent.
"The company want their money immediately," N'Fufu told him. "Under the GATT agreement, the government has to honour patents and, if we didn't agree to enforce the company's terms, then the crops wouldn't be available to our farmers.
"And if I don't pay?"
"The government seizes your land, auctions everything off to pay the royalty and throws you in prison if it isn't all paid off."
"And my family?"
N'Fufu shrugged and looked uncomfortable. "They'l
l have to find jobs," he said at length. Jonas knew that they were very unlikely to find work. So did N'Fufu.
"There's no wonder that man sold me the shigs cheap," observed Jonas, breaking a long silence in which he had watched the ugly creatures snorting and snuffling around. "How's he doing?"
The agent looked uncomfortable again. "He's not around," he said.
"Where is he? Prison?"
N'Fufu nodded.
"And his farm?"
"Auctioned off," said the agent, "That's why you got those four shigs so cheap. He knew what it was coming to.
Jonas knew what it was coming to as well, though he was not quite so sanguine about it as the other farmer seemed to have been. "You may as well take the form," he said, offering it. N'Fufu took it and turned back towards the Landrover. "Can you l end me your rifle till tomorrow," Jonas asked him "I've a couple of wild dogs prowling around the shig pen. I saw their tracks this morning and I don't want them getting inside."
The agent hesitated.
"You'll be this way tomorrow or the next day with the bill. You can pick it up then.
"I'm going to write the bill and leave it with you," the agent answered as they reached the Landrover, "But I can collect the gun when I collect the royalty money I suppose." He opened the driver's side door and reached inside for a pad of forms. He rested the pad on the bonnet of the vehicle and wrote slowly and with an air of great concentration. "How much waize seed will you need next year?" he asked at length.
"I'll keep back a couple of sacks from this year's harvest," Jonas told him. N'Fufu put down the pencil and looked up "With several of the seeds," he began, "It just isn't possible to grow from the seed you keep back. If won't germinate. That's to protect their investment. Waize is one that will grow from your seed, but whether you buy new seed or use what you keep back, the royalty is just the same,"
"You mean I can't just use my own harvest as seed?" Jonas was shattered by the idea.
"You don't think the company invested millions in research to have every farmer using their invention for free," objected the agent.
Jonas sighed. "I'll let you know what I need," he said. The life of plenty which had seen just a few days before was slipping away again. His bills were far out stripping his income, and there would be nothing for his family. "Okay," said N'Fufu, standing up straight and tearing off the bill to hand it over. "I'll come back the day after tomorrow for the money."
He reached inside the Landrover again. "Here's the gun," he said, handing it over. "Look after it."
"I will," said Jonas, and shot him.
He left N'Fufu's corpse, still looking surprised, and went to the shig pen. He chose one of the larger shiglets and lifted it out.
We may as well have a decent last meal," he thought aloud.