Practitioner: Food Rescuers
Current Trends:
By 2050 humanity’s ranks will likely have grown to nearly 10 billion people. In a scenario with moderate economic growth, this population increase will push up global demand for agricultural products by 50 percent over present levels projects The Future of Food and Agriculture, intensifying pressures on already-strained natural resources. (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2017).
Key Takeaway
- Scarcity of food may become a reality in an extrapolated timeline towards the future.
Storyworld:
- The world has officially run out of actual Food.
- Former agriculture and food industries have turned towards manufacturing a processed substance called Blobs that have become the staple diet (only for sustenance) for the everyman. This is provided for free, but contains little nutrients and tastes very bad.
- To make these blobs taste good with flavors and to add essential nutrients, people purchase and add Additives (Adds) to the Blobs after which they can be called Food.
- Therefore, these Adds also contain special properties that replicate essential nutrients such as Vitamin C, etc. and due to their compostable nature, they also expire over time if they are unused.
- Adds vary in price, so some poorer members of the population cannot afford them all.
Issues:
- Ecological Problem
- Social Problem
Revised Story
The Rescuers entered the marketplace, and Jaime their leader, started to give her orders.
“All right everyone, thank you for coming today. Before we begin, let’s check our equipment,” said Jaime, as she took out a random Add vial from inside her coat and scanned it with her CON-VIAL device.
Some beeping noises, and then the data appeared on her device’s screen.
[Results]
Edibility – O.K.
Magnesium — 20%
Zinc — 40%
Iron — 40%
Perfect, mine’s working, she thought to herself. She walked around and ensured that everyone else’s machine worked too.
“Alright, everyone has their inventory?” she asked. They nodded and gave a thumbs-up to her, waving their list of necessary nutrients the team was to collect that day.
“Perfect, let’s spread out and cover as much ground as possible!”
And off they went, with each Rescuer going towards a store of their own.
Jaime approached a storekeeper whose signboard read, “MUSHROOMS & OYSTERS”.
“Hi there, do you have any vials that will be expiring soon?” she asked politely.
The Storekeeper looked at her and grunted. “A Rescuer, eh?”
“Yes,” smiled Jaime. “One of the nutrients we need today is Zinc, so your store sign kinda screams that.”
“Yeah, yeah,” grumbled the Storekeeper. He walked around the back and came back a few seconds later with a few Add vials.
“These are the ones I couldn’t sell because mushroom flavours went out of vogue recently with the higher echelons,” he shrugged.
Jaime began to scan the Add vials one by one with the CON-VIAL to ensure they contained the nutrient they needed, and to check if the contents within the vial itself were already rotten.
After proceeding carefully, she concluded that the entire box was safe.
“Thank you sir, we will be putting these to good use,” beamed Jaime.
“Be sure to say hi to them for me,” said the Storekeeper as he sat down and went back to reading his paper.
***
“Jaime!” exclaimed a little boy dressed in ragged clothing.
“Hey Andy!” replied Jaime as the little boy rammed himself into her. Not one to waste time, Jaime began to test the boy with her SKINSENICAL device by tapping it on the boy’s skin.
The device read: ZINC DEFICIENCY.
“What did you bring us today?” asked Andy, excitedly.
“Mushrooms!” Jaime responded, as she prepared the Add vials she collected with her team earlier that day. “Give me your blob, Andy.”
Andy handed Jaime an odorless, grayish matter. She took it gently, then swung her machine bag around and placed the blog into her TRANSMUTATOR. A whirring noise occured and then a resounding ‘ding’.
“It’s ready Andy!” said Jaime as she took out the blob again, this time with a different color; it was a brownish-red. She handed it over to Andy.
Andy immediately chomped down on it and remarked, “MUSHROOMS ARE AMAZING.”
Allison Kapps
Vashon Tnee