Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Just as science learned to decode DNA through reverse
genetics, a little bit of reverse reading might help explain why NPR
correspondent Daniel Charles set out to write the agrobiotech
equivalent of fly-on-the-wall industry epics like World War 3.0,
Liar's Poker, and Hit Men. Read the epilogue
first--here's where he most eloquently explains the dueling American
myths (of both scientific progress and the sanctity of the land as
God-given gifts) that have fueled the recent battle of biotechnology
against environmentalism and consumer advocacy over genetically
modified crops. It's a necessarily stirring justification for a
story that, however well told, may lack for a general audience some
of the pathos or glamour of similar tussles within such fields as
medicine or entertainment.
This is really the story of one company--American chemical giant
Monsanto, which, some 20 years ago, pushed forward the technology of
injecting different plants such as corn and soybeans with genes that
would make them able to act as their own insecticides (insects would
simply die upon eating them). From there, Monsanto went on to
orchestrate a stunning takeover of much of the seed business, but
its plans for what seemed like world agricultural domination were
trounced when first European, then U.S. activists sparked a massive
backlash against GMOs ("genetically modified organisms")
pumped up with the company's patented genes--even absent substantive
scientific evidence that genetically modified crops were any more
harmful (or, for that matter, more modified) to people or the
environment than those without designer genes.
Given the recent explosion of genetic research, it's fascinating
to see the relatively primitive origins of this field in the early
1980s, and to discover the inner workings of world agribusiness,
especially (as the farm-bred Charles rightly points out) in a
society where most people have no idea where their food comes from,
or what happens to it along the way. It's just that Charles's
valiant attempt to make a bunch of nerdy, competitive scientists and
soulless, profit-grubbing Monsanto execs interesting is mostly in
vain. Still, you have to love the early '90s comedy of errors that
was the grandiose launch and swift demise of the superengineered
tomato--especially when an old-school tomato breeder tries to tell
her boss, a biotech exec and agricultural illiterate, that nature's
breeding process can't be accelerated to meet production goals. His
curt response? "Think out of the box." (Or crate, as it
were.) --Timothy Murphy