Food Tech

Have you ever heard of radiation breeding? What is the future of food production? What are the consequences of using radioactivity to mutate plant, fruit, and vegetable species? Plant mutation breeding, also called variation breeding, is a method that uses physical radiation or chemical means to induce spontaneous genetic variation in plants to develop new crop varieties. At the end of World War II, atomic gardening began as a campaign to promote the peaceful use of fission energy. Almost 70 years later, in Japan, the Institute of Radiation Breeding boasts the trademark pie-shape of Gamma Gardens and stretches across over 300 feet. To contain spill-off radiation, a 25-foot tall wall surrounds the complex. The lab is currently breeding for fruit color and fungus resistance. But ionizing radiation damages the genetic material in reproductive cells and results in mutations that are transmitted from generation to generation, creating postnatural beings that need to be understood from new post-darwinist perspectives. This and many more complex situations will be discussed during the “New Ecologies: De-centralizing the human through contemporary art” seminar, starting October 17th. All info on our website www.instituteforpostnaturalstudies.org