Shattering: Food, Politics, and the Loss of Genetic Diversity

by Pat Mooney and Cary Fowler

Book Overview

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...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0816511543
• ISBN13: 9780816511549
• Release Date: June 1990
• Publisher: University of Arizona Press
• Length: 278 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Essential reading for everyone looking to our future.

I am novice plant lover and read this book given to me by a farmer who is saving seeds in Idaho. It is excellent reading for anyone interested in our children's future as the threat to genetic diversity happening now will affect their welfare. EVERYONE should consider saving seeds! It covers complex issues in a readable manner and is worth having in your reference home library along with information on heirloom seeds. It puts a new spin on the potatoe famine in Ireland and outlines how realistically we should be concerned about famine here and abroad. "if diversity is to be saved, it may have to be saved by amateurs." A wonderful book.

Best book yet on loss of crop biodiversity

Fowler and Mooney have produced the most accessible -- and frightening -- book yet covering the ongoing loss of crop genetic diversity. You think the Irish Potato Famine was bad? We may not have seen anything yet.