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 (Average Customer Rating: 5.0 based on 2 reviews)

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.
June 24, 2008

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.
June 04, 2008

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