It was through control of the shattering of wild seeds that humans first domesticated plants. Now control over those very plants threatens to shatter the world's food supply, as loss of genetic diversity sets the stage for widespread hunger. Large-scale agriculture has come to favor uniformity in food crops. More than 7,000 U.S. apple varieties once grew in American orchards; 6,000 of them are no longer available. Every broccoli variety offered through seed catalogs in 1900 has now disappeared. As the international genetics supply industry absorbs seed companies--with nearly one...
It was through control of the shattering of wild seeds that humans first domesticated plants. Now control over those very plants threatens to s...
Since the days of the hunter-gatherers, Man has used for food plants of a vast genetic diversity. Yet the very earliest farming laid the seeds of a frightening tendency, greatly increased by the Agricultural Revolution. Uniformity in agriculture has been growing at an ever-increasing rate, most particularly in the use of plant breeds. As fewer varieties are employed, so the neglected ones disappear and are lost to the global gene pool. Genetic erosion is fast gathering pace. The southern hemisphere now holds most of the world's germplasm - the genetic basis of seeds - while the developed...
Since the days of the hunter-gatherers, Man has used for food plants of a vast genetic diversity. Yet the very earliest farming laid the seeds of a fr...
