Plants, Biotechnology and Agriculture [Paperback]

At a time when the world's food supplies are increasingly unable to meet the needs of a burgeoning population, there is significant diversity of opinion concerning the benefits and perceived dangers of the application of biotechnology to food production. Plants, Biotechnology and Agricultureprovides the reader with a guide to plants as both organisms and resources. The first half of the book gives an overview of plant biology, suitable for students of plant biology and agriculture as well as those without a biology background. This is followed by an outline of the human exploitation of plants, from domestication to scientific manipulation. Further chapters describe the technologies that are now being used to improve crops, society's responses to these technologies, and how they are being modified as a result. The book concludes with a discussion of future challenges for biotechnology in the face of rapid population growth, depletion of non-renewable resources and climate change.PART I. PLANTS AND THEIR GENOMES
1. Plants and their exploitation by people
2. The evolution of photosynthetic organisms
3. Plant molecular genetics and genomics

PART II. HOW PLANTS FUNCTION
4. Plant metabolism
5. Plant organisation and development
6. Plant responses to the environment

PART III. HOW PLANTS ARE MANIPULATED
7. Domestication and the empirical exploitation of plants
8. The scientific manipulation of plants
9. Crop improvement in the 20th century

PART IV. PLANTS, SOCIETY AND THE FUTURE
10. Plant biotechnologies in the 21st century
11. Social context of plant biotechnologies
12. Future challenges for plant biotechnology The book is very well written, easy to read and well structured. Each chapter starts with an overview and finishes with a summary. Although the book covers l#m