food fight

I don't often write about food and agriculture, but hey, it's harvest time, and world population is going to pass the 7 billion mark soon, so naturally our thoughts turn to how to feed all those people.

Chemical crop protection is under attack from all sides, as GM crops push some of it out of the global market (though not the European one, where people mistrust GM), resistance to established herbicides is spreading, and the fears of side effects (most recently: on bees) aren't going away either.

So I've looked into what direction the industry may take to get out of this trouble, and found a few interesting new approaches.

Read my feature in today's issue of Current Biology:

New directions in crop protection
Current Biology, Volume 21, Issue 17, R641-R643, 13 September 2011
doi:10.1016/j.cub.2011.08.055
Summary and limited access to PDF file




Don't know what they fed this quince tree (not mine)!