Which are the ‘Top Three’ most important / influential plants of power today (and I don't necessarily mean by the amount or value produced).  Justify and explain your answer.

This is a very tough question. Myriad arguments can be made for the case of any plant or type of cultivation. Some may argue the plant that served as the foundation of prosperity in the colonial Americas: tobacco. Others may argue for major food sources like wheat or rice. Their existence is crucial to society as we know it and even more significant in historical terms. But if one were to argue purely in terms of the modern day, I must assert that cannabis, palm, and soy beans are the most influential plants of power.

A recent and ongoing source of mass controversy and debate, the cannabis plant and the legality of its consumption are now relevant issues in modern American voting as well as on the international front. Its cultivation certainly has not affected the world’s population in the way tobacco or spices have, but it is globally known and consumed and a leading factor of entire black market industries. Before it reached the Mexican drug cartels or the Danish pushers in Christianhavn, the cannabis plant was used for its oils as well as a fiber (hemp). Today it is consumed in recreational and medicinal practices. When looked at recreationally, the common perception is it is neither good nor entirely bad for one’s health, but often time a method of pain mitigation. This is large topic of contention around the world today, but there are now four states in the U.S. that regulate the plant as a legal substance similarly to alcohol and a handful of others that maintain it for medicinal status.  

Heavily regulated medicinal cannabis today
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            The palm oil industry is also a major source of contention around the world today for its immense impacts on environment and industry. A now booming industry in Indonesia, the palm oil cultivation is a leading cause of the region’s deforestation in national forests. The loss of trees and the method in which they are cut down for the industry leads to habitat loss for wildlife and eventually a terrible loss of biodiversity, soil and water degradation, as well as emission of greenhouse gasses. The product itself is rampant in foods in developed countries, adding saturated fats to many food products leading to adverse health effects. The demand for palm oil is increasing and heated activism is arising between major producers and nongovernmental organizations.

Greenpeace protest of palm oil
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            Soybeans may be argued as such power plant due to its nutritional benefits for humans. A bean contains all of the “necessary” amino acids. Not only may be the beans be used as an efficient fertilizer, but when held up against the issue of food security, such a nutrient-packed crop may provide alleviation to a growing demand for certain food products. The urgency of the food security problem that the world faces is what brings this crop to the most powerful of modern plants.

Soybean product
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Food security is one issue comprised of a vast amount of very pressing individual problems. The world’s population is ever-increasing at exponential rates. With consumption rates continuously pushing the limits on and shortening the supply of finite resources such as fuels and land, food security is becoming an increasingly pressing issue on the global stage. In order for food supplies to supply the population and the concurrent necessary consumption, emissions and pollution is growing in the food industry; farmers and agricultural industries are competing for land and conflict is arising over water scarcity. This does not even cover the ecological degradation of soil producing lower yields with fossil fuel and pesticide use.

Water Shortages Becoming a Rampant Issue Globally
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            Large-scale industrial farming is tearing up much-needed lands used in food production and unsustainable yet cost efficient farming practices are running rampant in modern industry, only adding to the stresses on the issue of food security. Genetic modification and engineering of seeds has led to “self-terminating” plants, or plants that are unable to reproduce for themselves. This forces farmers to buy and cultivate entirely new seedlings and no similar food product.

Sustainability in Industrial Crop Production?
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         There have been attempts in addressing and fighting food security. In the “Green Revolution” of the 1960’s and following years, sustainable practices in the conservation and use of irrigation resources along with a changing perspective on widespread pesticide use led to healthier, higher yields of crop and food supplies. This solution did not end at a higher yield however. Successful crop growth assisted in population booms and higher consumption. Higher demand for food supplies leads to increased needs in land for farming, a problem often easily addressed by Biopiracy and land-grabbing techniques which have immense effects on indigenous cultures.

Altered Irrigation Techniques Following the Green Revolution
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            In all, food security encircles a multitude of issues that cannot be solved in a single effort. 

Biopiracy is a phenomenon that has plagued world cultures and contributed to mass cultivation of crops all throughout world history. It is the discovery and commercialization of crops indigenous to a particular region without proper compensation, permission, or recognition of the locals or indigenous people who initially presented their knowledge. There have been countless examples throughout history of Biopiracy or “bioprospecting.” Examples include tea, rubber, and the hoodia tree native to South Africa.

Brazilian Rubber Tappers
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Biopiracy has been a major contributing factor in the dispersal of various plant species and crops around the world. Plant hunter and biologist Robert Fortune contributed to the phenomenon in 1848 alongside the British East India Company and their endeavors to establish trade with China. The British were growing increasingly frustrated with the Chinese tea trade as China would only break trade barriers for silver as opposed to other goods. Fortune nearly went “undercover,” sent by the EIC to learn more about the cultivation of production of tea and report back for their own use. The man disguised himself and entered China, realizing many secrets of the trade and growing process, including the differentiation between black and green tea. The EIC by this time had acquired sufficient land in parts of Southeast Asia that were beneficial for the production of tea plants. At this, the EIC had, through Biopiracy, began their dominance the tea trading industry, giving only themselves the recognition.

Robert Fortune
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Another example of British Biopiracy can be seen in the mass cultivation of latex and rubber production. The cultivation began in the Amazon Rainforest and was brought to Europe by Old World explorers. The substance gained traction (puns) and quickly began to be improved by scientists and experimenters around the world. Charles Goodyear accidentally discovered the vulcanization process, a process that increases the strength and durability of rubber, and demand for rubber skyrocketed. The Amazonian sources were soon at capacity and the industry called for expansion. The British sent a man by the name of Henry Wickham to collect seeds from the region and bring them back for their own cultivation needs. Britain then began mass production in Sri Lanka and other parts of Southeast Asia with this prospected information and seed bank, thereby collapsing the Brazilian industry with no compensation.

In the modern day, bioprospecting still exists. The hoodia tree for example, a succulent native the Kalahari Desert of South Africa has been known to the indigenous population of the San people and their use of the plant as a control for appetite. In the mid 1990’s, the South African Center for Scientific and Industrial Research began developing dietary supplements. The San people were not set to receive compensation or payment for the industrial use of the plant and their knowledge on its use until agreements were made with the research institute that called for payment to the indigenous peoples, but only on a minor scale. 

Hoodia Plant
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