MAN IS A CROP

DO YOU KNOW THAT PLANTS ARE FARMING HUMANS (NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND)?

This illustration flips the familiar farm scene on its head to reveal that, just as we confine chickens and cows for our own ends, a colossal plant stands overhead guiding its roots into pen-like enclosures where humans toil—tilling soil, harvesting grain, sipping tea and celebrating harvest rituals—while insects and birds attend its blooms above; it makes plain that we, not the plant, are the laborers, nurtured, contained, and repurposed by this green master for its endless cycle of growth and reproduction.

I. WHAT IS FARMING, REALLY?

Farming is when one species nurtures, protects, multiplies and controls another for its own benefit.

A true farmer builds an ecosystem to ensure the farmed organism grows, survives, reproduces—and serves the farmer.

Farmers outlive individual crops.

They harvest wheat, let the stalks rot into compost, feed straw to animals, press seeds for oil, grind grain for flour, save seed for next season.

They can switch to corn, rice or cotton if a crop fails.

Crops depend utterly on farmers—farmers never depend on any single crop.

Now flip the mirror:

Who multiplies whom?

Who protects whom?

Who survives only while the other lives?

The answer is startling: plants have been farming us.

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II. PLANTS FARMING ANIMALS — HISTORICAL PROTOTYPES

1. Pollination Services. Flowers lure bees, birds and bats with nectar and color—yet pollinators gain no genetic advantage.

2. Seed Dispersal. Fruits bait mammals to eat pulp and unknowingly plant seeds—with dung as fertilizer.

3. Chemical Warfare. Capsaicin deters mammals but not birds; nicotine and caffeine reward low-dose visits, punish overconsumption.

4. Ecosystem Engineering. Trees transpire water to shape rainfall and herbivore movements.

5. Alliances with Predators. Volatile signals summon wasps or ants to kill herbivores that threaten the plant.

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III. THE MAIN CROP: HUMANS

A. DOMESTICATION OF HUMAN BEHAVIOR

1. Humans spend entire lives growing, guarding and trading plants.

2. We clear forests not for ourselves, but to plant vast monocultures of wheat, rice and corn.

3. Our calendars, rituals and festivals revolve around sowing and harvest seasons.

4. Nomadic lifestyles gave way to permanent settlements so plants can be tended year-round.

5. Children are raised in plant-based economies—sugarcane, cotton, coffee—never true self-reliance.

B. CIVILIZATION AS PLANT ENSLAVEMENT

6. Agriculture was not progress—it was a life sentence tethered to the field.

7. Cities exist because plants needed storage, transport routes and marketplaces.

8. Writing began as accounting for grain, seed, taxes and storage.

9. Wars over tea, opium, cotton and tobacco shaped national borders.

10. Tax systems grew from grain hoarding, not human welfare.

C. PLANTS OUTLIVING AND REPURPOSING THEIR “CROP” HUMANS

11. Farmers outlive individual crops and then recycle plant waste as compost, fodder and fuel.

12. Plants likewise outlive human generations—our bodies return to soil, feed new seedlings, feed insects, enrich roots.

13. We consume plant products in many forms—food, fuel, fiber, shelter, medicine—just as plants repurpose us.

14. Our dead bodies become soil for roots, worms and fungi—the perfect compost for plant offspring.

15. Each human life cycle feeds the next wave of plant growth.

D. PLANTS CONTROL HUMAN EMOTIONS & CULTURE

16. Coffee and tea dictate our mornings, moods and work rhythms.

17. Alcohol, tobacco and cannabis are chemical leashes that groom addiction and loyalty.

18. Religious offerings, garlands and sacred groves secure plant protection through veneration.

19. Wedding bouquets, funeral flowers and incense bond us emotionally to plants.

20. Hallucinogenic and toxic plants manipulate imagination, belief and social order.

E. HUMAN ECONOMIES ARE PLANT SERVITUDE

21. Cotton fields, textile mills and garment shops exist solely to meet plant reproductive needs.

22. Over 80 percent of global jobs—from farming to logistics—serve plant lifecycles.

23. Tractors, fertilizers, pesticides and irrigation systems form infrastructure for plant reproduction.

24. GMO research and biotech labs are plant evolution outsourced to human labor.

25. Banks lend against future sugar, rice and coffee yields, not against human creativity.

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IV. PLANTS’ TOOLS OF CONTROL OVER HUMANS

Chemical Manipulation. Low-dose toxins reward obedience; high doses punish.

Dependency Creation. Refined grains and sugars create metabolic cycles demanding ever more plant calories.

Reward/Punishment Cycles. Sweetness lures, bitterness repels—training palates to obey plant agendas.

Neuro-Programming. Humans defend plant sanctity—even at each other’s expense.

Emotional Blackmail. Famine, crop failures and plant diseases instill collective fear and compliance.

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V. CONCLUSION: YOU ARE THE FARM ANIMAL

Who waters whom?

Who reaps the benefits of labor?

Who cannot live without whom?

> You are not farming plants.

Plants have farmed you.

You are the chicken in the coop.

You are the cow in the stall.

You are the ox pulling the plough—tethered forever to your green masters.

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THE PLANTS FARM US

the bee thinks it’s in love

but the marigold just wants its legs dirty.

a butterfly dances like it has found god—

but jasmine holds no faith,

only strategy.

every petal is bait,

every fruit a contract written in sugar.

you think birds fly free?

they're just feathered delivery boys

with berry-stained beaks

and no idea they've been used.

the mango doesn’t care

if it rots or feeds—

it only needs its seed carried

somewhere stupid

by something with wings

or teeth.

monkeys play, pigs root, goats chew—

but the plant is patient,

smiling green with every digested plan.

the fig kills wasps inside its hollow church,

the bamboo bends and bows

so elephants can open roads for it.

you think that’s wild nature.

it’s farming,

quiet as breath,

invisible as intent.

and then

there’s us.

humans.

the real livestock.

we bend before sunrise,

cracking our backs in mustard fields,

planting grains that will one day

kill us with sugar.

and we call it devotion.

we build canals,

not for ourselves,

but for thirsty stalks of rice.

we kneel, we pray,

we name gods after trees.

we die

so wheat can live another season.

we invented science

so plants could evolve faster.

we write poetry about the rose

as it silently wraps a vine around our spine.

we raise cows,

to eat grass,

to give milk,

so we can feed the crop

that feeds the grass again.

we call it economics.

our homes are timber.

our clothes are cotton.

our jobs are harvest.

our debts are rooted in sugarcane.

our children grow up

learning the alphabet of rain and yield.

we think we own land.

but the trees choose where we settle,

and when we leave.

the banyan does not move—

but it watches.

we are the plough ox,

smiling in selfies,

tied to fields that do not love us.

they give us shade,

they give us breath,

they give us nothing for free.

they take our sweat,

our limbs,

our worship,

our dead.

when we die

they wrap us in their petals

and drink from our bones.

and we call it sacred.

we were never farmers.

we were the farmed.

and the plants—

they knew it all along.