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.
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