Quantum Negotiation

2 The WHAT & WHAT IF of Quantum Negotiation

Dr. Terry Garza is a research scientist for an international food organization. His organization's sole purpose is to develop methods to increase production of the developing world's food supply. His organization discovered a substance that, when added to the soil, dramatically reduces the amount of moisture needed in the soil to grow a variety of staple crops. It would effectively allow currently fallow and drought‐parched land to grow crops. It also has the promise to slow the process of the land turning into desert (“desertification”) and produce crops with less water, potentially saving millions of lives lost due to famine and drought.

This new substance can only be found in the Sri Lankan star fruit, which grows on trees in certain parts of Sri Lanka. The trees, which bear fruit only once every two years, are in a deserted and remote part of the country, making them highly inaccessible for easy harvesting. All efforts to transplant the trees or expand production have been unsuccessful. The process for obtaining the soil additive from the star fruit requires the seeds inside the star fruit to be turned into a fine powder.

Garza learned that the biannual harvest was completed and controlled by the Sri Lankan Ministry of Agriculture, which would sell the batch to the highest bidder. Knowing the importance of the powder and the potential lives that might be saved by using it in the right way, he was eager to purchase the next ...