Who is Bill Gates, the college dropout from Seattle who built the operating system of global capitalism - and then turned his restless, problem-solving mind to the oldest human activity of all: growing food? Why did his six-billion-dollar mission to end hunger in Africa leave more people hungry than before? And how does the story of one man's extraordinary ambition over the world's food supply echo the great estates of Imperial Rome, the English enclosures, and the ruthless monopolies of the Gilded Age?

Join John and Patrick as they tell the unsettling story of the world's most powerful philanthropist and his campaign to rewrite the operating system of African agriculture — in an age when the line between benevolence and control has never been harder to draw...

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The customs broker who is your fruit and veggies’ personal bodyguard. Learn more here!

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What is huitlacoche, the fungus that Indigenous farmers in Mexico gave thanks for at harvest - and that American agronomists spent a century trying to burn, quarantine, and breed out of existence? Why did two civilizations look at the same diseased corn cob and see, one, a seasonal gift, and the other, an agricultural catastrophe? And how does this strange, blackened organism open a window onto the great collision between Indigenous knowledge and colonial science; from the burning of Aztec codices to the tasting menus of New York?

Join John and Patrick as they tell the extraordinary story of corn smut - the Mexican truffle, the genetics laboratory darling, the fungus that fed empires and terrified farmers - in an age when the line between disease and delicacy has never been more hotly contested...

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In Sponsorship with Cornell University: Dyson Cornell SC Johnson College of Business

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Join the History of Fresh Produce Club for ad-free listening, bonus episodes, book discounts and access to an exclusive chatroom community.

Support us!

• Share this episode with your friends
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What is plastic, and how did a shortage of billiard balls accidentally give birth to the material that would feed the modern world? Why did a Belgian chemist rummaging through coal tar waste end up transforming the way humanity eats? And how does the unlikely journey from Victorian ivory substitutes to the clamshell of strawberries on your kitchen counter open a window onto the great forces of industrial history; from total war to the supermarket revolution?

Join John and Patrick as they tell the extraordinary story of plastic's conquest of fresh produce, and the civilization it quietly built around us, in an age that made abundance the new normal...

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In Sponsorship with J&K Fresh.

The customs broker who is your fruit and veggies’ personal bodyguard. Learn more here!

-----------

Join the History of Fresh Produce Club for ad-free listening, bonus episodes, book discounts and access to an exclusive chatroom community.

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1. Share this episode with your friends
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3. Write a review

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