Product Description
Forty chapters deal with various aspects of tissue culture, in vitro manipulation, and other biotechnological approaches to the improvement of maize.
They are arranged in eight sections: - In Vitro Technology, Callus Cultures and Regeneration of Plants, Somatic Embryogenesis. - Wide Hybridization, Embryo, Ovule, and Inflorescence Culture, in Vitro Fertilization. - Production of Haploids and Double Haploids, Anther and Pollen Culture. - Protoplast Culture, Genetic Transformation. - Somaclonal Variation and Mutations. - Molecular Biology and Physiological Studies. - Proteins and Nutritional Improvement. Pollen Storage, Cryopreservation of Germplasm. ... Read more

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Improved food security, led by increased productivity among Africas many small-scale farmers, has been the aim of significant national and international effort in recent decades.This book grew out of a two-year exploration conducted by the food security theme of The Rockefeller Foundation focusing on the potential for crop genetic improvement to contribute to food security among rural populations in Africa.It provides a critical assessment of the ways in which recent breakthroughs in biotechnology, participatory plant breeding, and seed systems can be broadly employed in developing and delivering more productive crop varieties in Africas diverse agricultural environments. ... Read more

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What will it mean to have a steady stream of animal and microbial genes entering the gene pools of plants in wild ecosystems?Private companies and the federal government are pouring significant resources into biotechnology, and the major application of genetic engineering to agriculture is transgenic crops. This carefully reasoned science and policy assessment shows that the commercialization and release of transgenic crops on millions of acres of farmland can pose serious -- and costly -- environmental risks. The authors propose a practical, feasible method of conducting precommercialization evaluations that will balance the needs of ecological safety with those of agriculture and business, and that will assist governments seeking to identify and protect against two of the most significant risks.Rissler and Mellon first define transgenic plants and review research currently under way in the field of crop biotechnology. They then identify and categorize the environmental risks presented by commercial uses of transgenic crops. These include the potential of transgenic crops to become weeds or to produce weeds with transgene properties such as herbicide resistance that may require costly control programs. Plants engineered to contain virus particles may facilitate the creation of new viruses that can affect economically important crops. Looking at global seed trade, the authors discuss the relationship between commercial approval in the United States and environmental risks abroad. Of particular concern is the flow of novel genes into the centers of crop biodiversity, primarily in the developing world, that could threaten the genetic base of the world's future food supply.The authors conclude by reviewing the current status of U.S. regulations governing transgenic crops. They discuss the difficulties that this new terrain presents to regulators, and offer recommendations concerning the commercial development, risk assessment, and regulation of these crops.Copublished with the Union of Concerned Scientists ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

marceo
it's a boo ... Read more

Product Description
In the past 15-20 years major discoveries have been concluded on potato biology and biotechnology.Important new tools have been developed in the area of molecular genetics, and our understanding of potato physiology has been revolutionized due to amenability of the potato to genetic transformation. This technology has impacted our understanding of the molecular basis of plant-pathogen interaction and has also opened new opportunities for the use of the potato in a variety of non-food biotechnological purposes.

This book covers the potato world market as it expands further into the new millennium. Authors stress the overriding need for stable yields to eliminate human hunger and poverty, while considering solutions to enhance global production and distribution. It comprehensively describes genetics and genetic resources, plant growth and development, response to the environment, tuber quality, pests and diseases, biotechnology and crop management. Potato Biology is the most valuable reference available for all professionals involved in the potato industry, plant biologists and agronomists.

· Offers an understanding of the social, economic and market factors that influence production and distribution
· Discusses developmentsand useful traits in transgenic biology and genetic engineering
· The first reference entirely devoted to understanding new advances in potato biology and biotechnology ... Read more

Product Description
Gain state-of-the-art knowledge of new research and developments in transgenic technology!

Genetically Modified Crops: Their Development, Uses, and Risks provides groundbreaking information on the integration of foreign DNA into the nucleus of a plant cell to produce a positive transformation. This volume details methods of gene delivery, laboratory tools and techniques to increase success rates, and the benefits, risks, and limitations of these methods. Authors at the forefront of this developing technology provide a comprehensive overview of transgenic crops and vital research on specific plant genera that have undergone transgenic transformation.

Agricultural biotechnology has become a national and necessary mainstay of farming and food production, and this book is an important scientific tool to keep you informed of the latest protocols of genetic transformation. This book also outlines the goals that scientists are striving to reach, such as targeted gene expression where the gene only expresses itself at a certain time in the plant’s life cycle, but disappear before human consumption. One of the greatest concerns is maintaining the welfare of the consumer, and in this volume the authors repeatedly discuss their findings in terms of safety for human consumption.

With Genetically Modified Crops: Their Development, Uses, and Risks, you’ll explore:

the history of crop transformation and the techniques most commonly used for gene delivery, including biolistic bombardment and Agrobacterium-mediated transformation
various methods of determining successful gene transfer in putative transgenic plants, such as blotting, functional assaying, and progeny testing
the utilization of recombinase-directed plant transformation to improve faithful and consistent gene delivery and transference
the successful reproduction of an insecticidal protein from chicken eggs in transgenic corn—and its benefits to society
the current status of risk assessment and examples of incidents that have raised the level of concern about genetically modified plants outside the lab

This book also contains several chapters about current methods of transformation involving specific crops such as:

cotton
wheat
alfalfa
sorghum
rice
and more!

Genetically Modified Crops: Their Development, Uses, and Risks is an indispensable guidebook for agronomists, plant and molecular geneticists, and students in agronomy, genetics, entomology, horticulture, and plant pathology. This manual is also useful to concerned consumers who wish to know the latest scientific findings on genetically modified crops. Complete with references, figures, and photographs, this book is a must-read to keep up to date with science and technology. ... Read more

Product Description
This book provides a comprehensive review at the biochemical and molecular level of the processes and techniques that contribute to crop improvement. General topics include a historical perspective of the advancements in crop improvement; cultivar systematics and biochemical and molecular markers in crop improvement programs; the genetics of physiological and biochemical processes affecting crop yield; the genetics of photosynthesis, chloroplast, relevant enzymes, and mutations; osmoregulation/adjustment and the production of protective compounds in relation to drought tolerance; and the biochemistry of disease resistance, including elicitors, defense response genes, their role in the production of phytoalexins and other strategies against pathogens. Other topics include quality breeding (e.g., molecular gene structure, changing individual amino acids, enhancing nutritive value of proteins) and biotechnology/genetic engineering. Geneticists, biochemists, botanists, agricultural specialists and others involved in crop improvement and breeding should consider this volume essential reading. ... Read more

Product Description
During the 45 years of communist regimes in Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, agriculture was centrally directed without regard of quality factors and market need, and was heavily subsidised. Democratisation of the countries and adoption of market driven economies, including agriculture, created conditions that require new thinking and approaches to find market areas that will fill the needs of each country, and provide produce that is not redundant for the Common Market. The aim of this book is to facilitate solving common agricultural problems using the tools of biotechnology. The book addresses five themes: Plant Transformations, Plant Genomics, Breeding Plants for Resistance and Legal Aspects of Biotechnology, including risk assessment. Some specific topics dealt with are: The way from fundamental research to start-up company, Crop improvement by transgenic technology; Strategies for improving resistance; Current procedures for applying risk assessment in genetically modified crops; Questions arising from the implementation of the Hungarian gene technology law; Public perception and legislation of Biotechnology in Poland. ... Read more

Product Description

This superb volume provides a critical assessment of genomics tools and approaches for crop breeding. Volume 1 presents the status and availability of genomic resources and platforms, and also devises strategies and approaches for effectively exploiting genomics research. Volume 2 goes into detail on a number of case studies of several important crop and plant species that summarize both the achievements and limitations of genomics research for crop improvement.

Product Description

As the world's population rises to an expected ten billion in the next few generations, the challenges of feeding humanity and maintaining an ecological balance will dramatically increase. Today we rely on just four crops for 80 percent of all consumed calories: wheat, rice, corn, and soybeans. Indeed, reliance on these four crops may also mean we are one global plant disease outbreak away from major famine.

In this revolutionary and controversial book, Jonathan Gressel argues that alternative plant crops lack the genetic diversity necessary for wider domestication and that even the Big Four have reached a "genetic glass ceiling": no matter how much they are bred, there is simply not enough genetic diversity available to significantly improve their agricultural value. Gressel points the way through the glass ceiling by advocating transgenics -- a technique where genes from one species are transferred to another. He maintains that with simple safeguards the technique is a safe solution to the genetic glass ceiling conundrum. Analyzing alternative crops -- including palm oil, papaya, buckwheat, tef, and sorghum -- Gressel demonstrates how gene manipulation could enhance their potential for widespread domestication and reduce our dependency on the Big Four. He also describes a number of ecological benefits that could be derived with the aid of transgenics.

A compelling synthesis of ideas from agronomy, medicine, breeding, physiology, population genetics, molecular biology, and biotechnology, Genetic Glass Ceilings presents transgenics as an inevitable and desperately necessary approach to securing and diversifying the world's food supply.

Customer Reviews (2)

A rational, common sense introduction to transgenic strategies
The author of this book defines a "genetic ceiling" for a variety of crop to be a situation (such as the need for growing the crop in arid environments) where standard breeding is intractable but where genetic engineering can step in to successfully solve the problem at hand (such as the introduction of foreign genes in the crop so as to make it hardy in such environments). Without giving a "cookbook" for how to implement genetic engineering through transgenic strategies, the author's goal is to make readers more aware of the need for biodiversity as it relates to the miniscule number of actual food crops cultivated at the present time: rice, wheat, maize, and soybeans. To depend on so few poses a threat, considering the world's population at the present time and its growth in the near future. But the goal of biodiversity must be cognizant as to the dangers of introducing species to environments in which they are not native, or the inadvertent introduction of `feral' organisms (those domesticated species that have escaped domestication and returned to the wild state). "Gene flow" therefore is an issue that must not be taken lightly, even to those individuals, such as this reviewer, who are die-hard advocates of genetic engineering and transgenic strategies.

Even though the author is not presenting a collection of recipes for repairing the problems brought about by "glass ceilings" the reader can extract a problem-constraint-strategy pattern throughout the book. Examples of this include:

Problem: To use straw for producing meat and fuels.
Constraint: Straw is difficult for ruminants to digest and only about 20% efficiency for conversion to ethanol.
Strategy: Use RNA interference to modify the lignin and cellulose content in order to increase digestibility.

Problem: Papaya is highly susceptible to papaya ringspot virus.
Constraint: Metabolic pathways for inducing disease-fighting phytoalexins are very complex.
Strategy: Transform the VST gene encoding stilbene synthase into papaya.

Many more of these kinds of examples abound in the book, along with in-depth discussion on the risks of ferality and gene flow into existing populations.

Clearly the author is fed up with the irrationality and propaganda of many groups opposed to genetic engineering. His common sense approach to the issues will speak to the choir but will probably not dissuade those who are members of these groups. But sustained information flow from the advocates of genetic engineering, with real evidence from scientific field experiments may persuade the regulatory agencies of the viability and safety of transgenic crops. Still though, it is a disconcerting development that not only must a war be fought against hunger and disease, but also one against hysteria and misinformation.

Jonathan Gressel, Genetic Glass Ceilings
Jonathan Gressel has written a fascinating and thoughtful book about plant breeding.His book is also very timely as the newspapers are filled with stories about a food crisis.

What was most impressive was Gressel's willingness to ask challenging questions. He asks sensible, but provocative, questions, and then discuss possible solutions -- not only in "rosy" terms but with recognition of the difficulties and challenges that exist. At the same time, Gressel evinces a firm conviction that scientific solutions are likely to exist for well-formulated questions of scientific merit. An excellent book that should be read by thoughtful, engaged policy-makers around the world who are concerned about issues of agricultural development.

Let me give two examples:
In Chapter 5, "Introduction to Case Studies: Where the Ceiling needs to be Breached", Gressel asks why dwarfing (the successful approach for wheat and rice of the Green Revolution) has stopped. He asks, "Why not dwarfing, using transgenic techniques, for maize and sorghum?" His question astounded this reader because I had assumed that the Green Revolution had exhausted its possibilities. His question and affiliated discussion clearly indicates that the Green Revolution has not exhausted its possibilities, if scientists and plant breeders ask meritorious questions and seek sensible solutions in scientific plant breeding.
Gressel's Chapter 7, "Kwashiorkor, Diseases, and Cancer: Needed: Food without Mycotoxins", is especially interesting. Gressel provides the science to show that a sensible scientific approach to plant breeding can do so very much for the safety and health of humans (particularly the poor) and animals.His discussion focuses not only on acute problems (such as neural tube defects for babies and various deadly diseases for horses and pigs) but also on chronic problems of long-term exposure to mycotoxins likely increasing the life-time risks of suffering cancers. ... Read more

Product Description
Separating fact from fiction, this book explains why and how genetically modified (GM) crops can help combat poverty, starvation, and disease in the developing world in a safe and responsible way. Explained are the differences and similarities between genetic modification, conventional plant breeding, and natural processes such as crosspollination and mutations. Controversial issues such as patents, labeling, regulations and controls, and food safety for GM crops and organically grown food are addressed. Additional information on horizontal gene transfer and testing for allergens is also provided. ... Read more

Product Description
Synseeds is the first major book devoted to synthetic seeds. It provides an outstanding state-of-the-art treatise on somatic embryogenesis, embryo dessication, coating and encapsulation technology, synthetic seed storage, controlled release for synthetic endosperm development, mechanization of synthetic seed production, direct field planning, and the status of patents. Major problems for the commercialization of synthetic seeds are discussed, and new methods for encapsulation of somatic embryos and creation of synthetic endosperm are presented. The most advanced somatic embryogenesis and organogenesis systems for alfalfa, carrots, celery, grapes, lettuce, mangos, mulberries, orchardgrass, sandalwood, soybeans, and spruce are described in detail.Synseeds also presents the latest data from major organizations conducting synthetic seed research and development. The book will be an essential reference for all researchers and students working on somatic embryogenesis and synthetic seed development. ... Read more

Product Description

Development of transgenic crop plants, their utilization for improved agriculture, health, ecology and environment and their socio-political impacts are currently important fields in education, research and industries and also of interest to policy makers, social activists and regulatory and funding agencies. This work prepared with a class-room approach on this multidisciplinary subject will fill an existing gap and meet the requirements of such a broad section of readers.

Volume 2 with 13 chapters contributed by 41 eminent scientists from nine countries deliberates on the utilization of transgenic crops for resistance to herbicides, biotic stress and abiotic stress, manipulation of developmental traits, production of biofuel, biopharmaceuticals and algal bioproducts, amelioration of ecology and environment and fostering functional genomics as well as on regulations and steps for commercialization, patent and IPR issues, and compliance to concerns and compulsions of utilizing transgenic plants.

Product Description
Describes how this discipline can contribute to the improvement of crops. Tailored to the needs of advanced students, teachers and researchers in the fields of plant breeding, genetic engineering, and plant tissue culture. ... Read more

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This volume highlights achievements in cryopreservation, chronicles method development, and describes relevant literature. The provided detailed information helps practitioners develop and improve methods for desired species. The volume is divided into four parts:
I Cryopreservation of Germplasm;
II Herbaceous Plants: Barley, celery, chamomile, chicory, garlic, ginseng, hop, horseradish, mint, taro, wasabi;
III Woody Species: Coffee, Eucalyptus, guazuma, horsechestnut, neem, olive, poplar oak, Prunus, Ribes, rose.
IV Australian Species.
Initially, cryopreservation was driven by the concern for loss of diversity of crops essential for continued improvement of the many plants used for food, health, and shelter. The interest has been expanded by conservationists and their concerns for retaining the diversity of natural populations. ... Read more

Product Description

The growing global population poses the challenge to the scientific community of doubling or tripling the food, feed and fiber production by the year 2050. Biotechnology can make a significant contribution to this effort.

This volume reviews the use of biotechnology in cotton, which is the leading plant fiber crop worldwide and grown commercially in more than 50 countries. Renowned experts highlight the success of Bt cotton, the introduction of second and third generation traits and the impact at all levels of farming. Furthermore, the molecular advances being made in cotton biotechnology and the potential traits that will come to market in the next decade are described in detail.

Product Description

This superb volume provides a critical assessment of genomics tools and approaches for crop breeding. Volume 1 presents the status and availability of genomic resources and platforms, and also devises strategies and approaches for effectively exploiting genomics research. Volume 2 goes into detail on a number of case studies of several important crop and plant species that summarize both the achievements and limitations of genomics research for crop improvement.

Product Description
The basic purpose of this book is to describe the relativevalue of each method of improving various agricultural crops by usingparasexual techniques. While no book can be a complete source of allthe information on a subject, a range of topics were selected tohighlight the recent developments in mutagenesis (conventionalapproach and molecular biology) and in vitro induced variation inplant breeding. We have deliberately kept short the title of thisbook, simply emphasizing somaclonal variation and induced mutation.This book is divided into three sections. Section 1 contains 13chapters mainly on somaclonal variation (SCV), covering SCV in cropimprovement, SCV in ornamentals, cereals and forage grasses, banana,and forest trees, cytogenetic basis of SCV, in vitro selection,gametoclonal variation, protoclonal variation, and solanaceousmedicinal plants. Section 2 deals with induced mutation, and iscovered in 10 chapters mainly on mutagenesis in sugarcane, fruittrees, apomixsis, ornamental plants, disease resistance, cereals andlegumes, and vegetatively propagated plants. Section 3 describes themolecular aspects of mutagenesis and somaclonal variation, insertionalmutagenesis (T-DNA mutagenesis, transposons), and molecular methodsfor identifying somaclonal variation, RAPD markers in bananasomaclones, and transgene expression. ... Read more

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Listen to a short interview with Robert Paarlberg
Host: Chris Gondek | Producer: Heron & Crane

Heading upcountry in Africa to visit small farms is absolutely exhilarating given the dramatic beauty of big skies, red soil, and arid vistas, but eventually the two-lane tarmac narrows to rutted dirt, and the journey must continue on foot. The farmers you eventually meet are mostly women, hardworking but visibly poor. They have no improved seeds, no chemical fertilizers, no irrigation, and with their meager crops they earn less than a dollar a day. Many are malnourished.

Nearly two-thirds of Africans are employed in agriculture, yet on a per-capita basis they produce roughly 20 percent less than they did in 1970. Although modern agricultural science was the key to reducing rural poverty in Asia, modern farm science—including biotechnology—has recently been kept out of Africa.

In Starved for Science Robert Paarlberg explains why poor African farmers are denied access to productive technologies, particularly genetically engineered seeds with improved resistance to insects and drought. He traces this obstacle to the current opposition to farm science in prosperous countries. Having embraced agricultural science to become well-fed themselves, those in wealthy countries are now instructing Africans—on the most dubious grounds—not to do the same.

In a book sure to generate intense debate, Paarlberg details how this cultural turn against agricultural science among affluent societies is now being exported, inappropriately, to Africa. Those who are opposed to the use of agricultural technologies are telling African farmers that, in effect, it would be just as well for them to remain poor.

Customer Reviews (4)

Starved for Science or Hungry for the Truth?
Robert Paarlberg provides his panacea for global poverty and hunger in his latest book Starved for Science: How Biotechnology is Being Kept out of Africa.Through the book, Paarlberg constructs a well supported and polarizing argument describing how genetically modified (GM) agriculture can alleviate Africa's widespread hunger, yet the technology is being denied to those that most need it.He provides extensive support for his points, sometimes at the expense of being redundant in order to fully back his claims, yet the writing in general is captivating and better attention retaining than most scientific writing.

Paarlberg characterizes the global great skepticism and even fear of GM agriculture, in part due to the fact that westerncountries are rich and do not need further agricultural science to ensure sufficient food supplies (which has contributed to a decrease in public sector agricultural research and foreign assistance overall#.Paarlberg goes on to describe how the general aversion has been projected onto African leaders causing them to reject the food their countrymen need so badly.Paarlberg cites unfounded propaganda of the dangers of genetically modified organisms #GMOs), international trade standards, and the threat of rescindment of financial assistance by European governments and NGOs as the leverage used to exert their influence on African leaders, vilifying the governments, lobbyists, and NGOs alike in the process.

Yet the debate is not so clear cut.Paarlberg dramatically reproaches an unsubstantiated global opposition towards GMOs, saying that there has yet to be any evidence presented to suggest their potential dangers and thus no scientific justification for their rejection.However, while some have agreed with Paarlberg that GM foods are safe, it is not due to lack of evidence to the contrary.If anything, the reality is that there is far from a clear conclusion on the matter.Paarlberg also neglects any mention of the substantial political support for GM agriculture.He asserts that genetic engineering is the `all or nothing' solution excluding several non-GM approaches and grossly generalizing the African continent.

Paarlberg's book brings a great deal of awareness to a situation many would otherwise know nothing about, and one which may hold the key to Africa's future.Genetic modification is a subject that is in general plagued by stigma and politics and it is important that the debate be brought to light in order to make well informed progress.Thus, this book is an important read for anyone concerned with African development and relations, foreign policy, or agriculture, and furthermore for the population in general hoping to become more informed of the world around them.

It is equally important, however, that dogmatic stance and vilification of the opposition do more than sensationalizing the situation and instead provide a well balanced case.Readers should be aware that Paarlberg's book provides an excellent summary, but only of one side of the argument.Further reading is necessary to gain a full understanding of the situation.

Very narrow and pro-corporate view of science
The central premise of this book is that those who oppose the wholesale conversion of the world's vast agricultural biodiversity to a small handful of genetically modified commercial crop varieties are somehow anti-science.

Ecology is a science. It offers us numerous cautionary tales about simplistic interventions in complex systems. It suggests that a stable long term food system will utilize more rather than fewer species and varieties of plants. Greatly increasing the use of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer would likely increase African yields in the short term, but it requires fossil fuel imputs that are clearly not sustainable and likely contributing to climate destabilization (a serious problem facing future Africans).

Ecology demonstrates why simplistic poisons, like Monsanto's RoundUp, don't offer long lasting control because weeds and insect pests evolve quickly in response to the extreme environmental pressures the poisons supply. In the brief history of GMO agriculture there is already considerable evidence of genetic adaptation by several important weed species.

Agriculture is a craft that has been developed in real world conditions over ten thousand years. In the phrase of British biologist Colin Tudge, what we need is 'science assisted craft', not the replacement of that essentially biological craft by a crude industrial technology.

The precautionary principle argues for testing new ideas more thoroughly and on a small scale because of the likelihood of unintended consequences. To think that growing our food with synthetic fertilizers and patented GMOs is more scientific than a broad based organic agriculture is akin to arguing that amphetamines provide more energy than bread.

Feels like half of the story
Robert Paarlberg (RP) seems sincere in his desire to help solve the problem of African hunger. Even though he advocates doing so using technologies owned by Monsanto, Synergen or Du Pont/Pioneer, he's candid that these companies aren't likely to win popularity contests. If, as some might suspect, the book is propaganda for those companies, it's unusually sophisticated. Nonetheless, I'm troubled by some of the book's argumentative techniques, and especially by its failure to engage with some pertinent issues. Even if sincerely motivated, it comes across less like a balanced book about policy and more like a legal brief, a style of writing in which you skate over or even ignore the weak points of your argument rather than confront them.

1. RP's argument focuses on the health and environmental aspects of using genetically modified organisms (GMOs) for food. Europeans consumers don't see much benefit for those foods, and, according to surveys, are even more ignorant than Americansabout the science behind them. Moreover, the EU has adopted an unusually rigorous precautionary approach to regulating the foods, contrasted with the American one, which is more welcoming. Europe is much closer in psychological as well as physical distance to Africa than is the US, is more commercially connected to African agriculture, and also supplies 3x as much aid as the US. Consequently, the European approach to impeding the spread of GMOs by regulation has been the role model for African governments -- even though, in RP's view, African countries (i) need GMOs to feed their people and (ii) are pretty lax in regulating everything else. NGOs that are opposed to Green Revolution-style agriculture, which uses a lot of fertilizers, make things worse. So does the World Bank, which has cut back drastically on agricultural aid. Nonetheless, African governments themselves must shoulder much of the blame, for their "curious failure" to invest in science-based agriculture (e.g., @84).

2. Here's where some odd omissions begin. (A) RP alludes in passing to the World Bank's shift to structural reform in lieu of direct aid. He also mentions that many African countries export crops grown for European consumers. And he mentions the "curious failure" to invest. But he doesn't connect the dots. For many years, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund forced debtor governments to prioritize debt repayment. Exports were necessary to earn dollars and other foreign currencies to pay off Western lenders. Payments to farmers, and investment in agricultural and transportation infrastructure fell precipitously as a result. (See, e.g., Walden Bello's article in The Nation, 2008/05/15.) The "curious failure" was due at least in part to pressure from Western financial institutions. Nor does RP mention the impact of the WTO and other regional trade treaties on local agriculture in poorer countries, which had to open their economies to imports esp. from the US. To say nothing of the civil wars, government corruption and other problems in Africa that might distract governments from agricultural policy. I don't understand why he omits these subjects, since they don't necessarily detract from his theory of EU influence.

(B) On the other hand, his discussion of issues relating to intellectual property rights (IPR) is less forthright. He dismisses the issue by claiming that most companies are willing to license royalty-free in the poorest countries since the money they could make is so small (@115). But in fact this wasn't Monsanto's plan for a bigger-market product, GMO drought-tolerant maize; their generosity manifested itself instead in their lobbying to get paid from the deep pockets of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (see @174). (Even if markets in Africa are small, the IPR issue is especially sensitive in countries that have huge poor populations, like China and India. RP points out that multinationals have licensed GMO technologies to local joint ventures in those countries; that isn't the same thing as letting farmers off the hook from buying seeds plus Monsanto fertilizer each year. He also doesn't mention the increasing number of suicides by small farmers in India associated with the spread of GMO cotton cultivation, which has been documented by V. Shiva and others.)

RP omits any mention of the WTO's highly controversial TRIPS agreement, which requires member countries to recognize GMO patents. He also omits any mention of the UPOV agreement on plant varieties, and the pressures the US and other OECD countries bring to bear for "TRIPS+" provisions (i.e., provisons that provide even stronger IPR protection than TRIPS -- thereby benefiting the "1st World" country) when negotiating bilateral treaties. See e.g. the outstanding volume edited by G. Tansey and T. Rajotte, "The Future Control of Food" (Earthscan 2008). See also the work of John Barton at Stanford Law School, who has shown that these treaty provisions tend to benefit only multinationals, and not local biotech industries. RP himself supplies the astonishing figures that while US farmers get 20% of the "economic surplus" from GMO soybeans, Monsanto itself gets 45% of this surplus (@34). That's a recommendation?

3. Some of RP's other arguments amount to little more than name-calling. Those who oppose GMO crops because of the involvement of multinationals are labeled "agrarian romantics and populists" (@79). The ranks of the proponents of organic food and opponents of chemical use also include a "former hippie" (@62), an "accountant who grew up on the Lower East Side of Manhattan" (@72), a "thorough mystic" who believed in Atlantis (@id.), a "graduate of a Quaker college in Indiana" (@104), and an "aquatic biologist [and] literary celebrity" who just happened to be Rachel Carson. Credible critics like Carson and Jim Hightower (whom RP does at least call "talented" @69) are inserted into a parade of putative amateurs and loonies, for a kind of guilt by association. The notion that hunger is not caused by a shortage of food is called "the Greenpeace line" (@105); you won't find any mention in this book of the first person to put forward this idea and to provide evidence to support it, 1998 Nobel laureate Amartya Sen (see, e.g., Sen's classic "Poverty and Famines" (Oxford UP 1981)). On the other side of the divide is rational science, as represented by "innovators" Monsanto & al.(@33), and by a "scientific consensus" evidenced by citations to just 2 articles (@29-30).

4. RP's argument that European attitudes have influenced policy in Africa is quite plausible. But it's also only part of the story. RP quotes an African activist as saying "Yes, we are starving, but we are saying no to the food the Americans are forcing on our throats" (@142). RP's response to this seems to be to shout "But that's not rational!," coupled with a kind of Freedom Fries discourse about the bad Europeans. By skating over the political issues related to trade and financial policy, he misses a chance to understand the African view as a rational political response to a history of US heavy-handedness. Nor does he offer any recommendations for how the US can reclaim influence in Africa, beyond a wistful "if only" sort of sentiment: If only those African governments would respect science and buy the great new stuff from our American corporate innovators... An interesting but ultimately frustrating book.

Truths beyond popular culture
Friday, June 13, 2008 - Feminist Review.org

As a mom who does what I can to buy organic food for my family, I completely understand the general distaste most of us have for genetically modified (GM) foods. The very thought of vegetables altered by scientists in labs seems creepy and somehow inherently wrong, doesn't it? But when I read Starved for Science, I quickly realized that such a romanticized and emotional standpoint in such a critical debate as starvation is not only uninformed, it is just plain irresponsible. I also realized that, whether we like it or not, most of us are already eating GM foods on a daily basis.

In plain language and with plentiful sources to back up his positions, Paarlberg describes how in first world countries, where food is plentiful and obesity more of a problem than starvation, people can afford to pine for the days of small neighborhood farms - and can turn up their noses at the agribusiness and subsequent science that has allowed us to take for granted having not only enough to eat, but a wide choice in what and where we get our food. In Europe, the negative public opinion toward genetically modified organisms (GMO's) has led to labeling and bans on imports suspected to be "contaminated" by genetically altered seeds. Greenpeace and many NGO's are working actively to keep African farmers on small plots of land using techniques that date back thousands of years, but to the detriment and hardship of those very farmers.

Paarlberg describes how rich countries have come to fear and dislike GMO's, stopping funding and support easily where food is in no shortage, and yet when it is convenient, still continue to fund their use in the pharmaceutical industry where a longevity benefit can be gained. And governments in African countries situated in urban areas that are highly influenced by European bias, both in cultural influence and monetary flow, follow suit. Therefore, they are not developing their own programs to find strains of seeds that could resist drought, and it isn't worth enough money to anyone else to do so for them.

The majority of small farms in Africa are currently run by women, as men often leave to find other jobs in mines or more urban areas to supplement family incomes. Children stay out of school to help with the farming, and they do it all with wooden tools and poorly fed animal labor. Green movements in China and India have brought these countries to a position where starvation in no longer such a pressing issue; however, in Africa the problem is worse than ever.

Paarlberg admits to having kept his research a bit under wraps until now, knowing the reaction he would get from his own circle of friends and colleagues. It could be said that being `socially conscious' has taken on certain assumptions (and presumptions) among the wealthier strata of our urban world with a borg-like uniformity, and in the case of poverty in Africa, maintaining a position of being purely organic could easily be likened to saying "let them eat cake."

Review by Jennifer M. Wilson ... Read more

Product Description

Development of transgenic crop plants, their utilization for improved agriculture, health, ecology and environment and their socio-political impacts are currently important fields in education, research and industries and also of interest to policy makers, social activists and regulatory and funding agencies. This work prepared with a class-room approach on this multidisciplinary subject will fill an existing gap and meet the requirements of such a broad section of readers.

Volume 1 with ten chapters contributed by 31 eminent scientists from nine countries deliberates on the basic concepts, strategies and tools for development of transgenic crop plants, including topics such as: explants used for the generation of transgenic plants, gene transfer methods, organelle transformation, selection and screening strategies, expression and stability of transgenes, silencing undesirable genes, transgene integration, biosynthesis and biotransformation and metabolic engineering of pathways and gene discovery.

Product Description
Summarizing landmark research, Volume 2 of this essentialseries furnishes information on the availability of germplasm resources that breeders can exploit for producing high-yielding cereal crop varieties. Written by leading international experts, this volume offers the most comprehensive and up-to-date information on employing genetic resources to increase the yield of those cereal crops that provide the main source of nutrition for two-thirds of the world.

In thirteen succinct chapters, Genetic Resources, Chromosome Engineering, and Crop Improvement: Cereals, Volume 2 focuses on wheat, rice, maize, oats, barley, millet, sorghum, and rye, as well as triticale: a wheat and rye hybrid with great potential.

An introductory chapter outlines the cytogenetic architecture of cereal crops, describes the principles and strategies of cytogenetics and breeding, and summarizes landmarks in current research. This sets the stage for the ensuing crop-specific chapters. Each chapter generally provides a comprehensive account of the crop, its origin, wild relatives, exploitation of genetic resources in the primary, secondary, and tertiary gene pools through breeding and cytogenetic manipulation, and genetic enrichment using the tools of molecular genetics and biotechnology.

Certain to become the standard reference for improving the yields of these critical grains, this book is the definitive source of information for plant breeders, agronomists, cytogeneticists, taxonomists, molecular biologists, biotechnologists, and graduate students and researchers in these fields. ... Read more