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Author: James C. McCann Publisher: Harvard University Press ISBN: 0674040740 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 304
Book Description
Sometime around 1500 AD, an African farmer planted a maize seed imported from the New World. That act set in motion the remarkable saga of one of the world’s most influential crops—one that would transform the future of Africa and of the Atlantic world. Africa’s experience with maize is distinctive but also instructive from a global perspective: experts predict that by 2020 maize will become the world’s most cultivated crop. James C. McCann moves easily from the village level to the continental scale, from the medieval to the modern, as he explains the science of maize production and explores how the crop has imprinted itself on Africa’s agrarian and urban landscapes. Today, maize accounts for more than half the calories people consume in many African countries. During the twentieth century, a tidal wave of maize engulfed the continent, and supplanted Africa’s own historical grain crops—sorghum, millet, and rice. In the metamorphosis of maize from an exotic visitor into a quintessentially African crop, in its transformation from vegetable to grain, and from curiosity to staple, lies a revealing story of cultural adaptation. As it unfolds, we see how this sixteenth-century stranger has become indispensable to Africa’s fields, storehouses, and diets, and has embedded itself in Africa’s political, economic, and social relations. The recent spread of maize has been alarmingly fast, with implications largely overlooked by the media and policymakers. McCann’s compelling history offers insight into the profound influence of a single crop on African culture, health, technological innovation, and the future of the world’s food supply.
Author: James C. McCann Publisher: Harvard University Press ISBN: 0674040740 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 304
Book Description
Sometime around 1500 AD, an African farmer planted a maize seed imported from the New World. That act set in motion the remarkable saga of one of the world’s most influential crops—one that would transform the future of Africa and of the Atlantic world. Africa’s experience with maize is distinctive but also instructive from a global perspective: experts predict that by 2020 maize will become the world’s most cultivated crop. James C. McCann moves easily from the village level to the continental scale, from the medieval to the modern, as he explains the science of maize production and explores how the crop has imprinted itself on Africa’s agrarian and urban landscapes. Today, maize accounts for more than half the calories people consume in many African countries. During the twentieth century, a tidal wave of maize engulfed the continent, and supplanted Africa’s own historical grain crops—sorghum, millet, and rice. In the metamorphosis of maize from an exotic visitor into a quintessentially African crop, in its transformation from vegetable to grain, and from curiosity to staple, lies a revealing story of cultural adaptation. As it unfolds, we see how this sixteenth-century stranger has become indispensable to Africa’s fields, storehouses, and diets, and has embedded itself in Africa’s political, economic, and social relations. The recent spread of maize has been alarmingly fast, with implications largely overlooked by the media and policymakers. McCann’s compelling history offers insight into the profound influence of a single crop on African culture, health, technological innovation, and the future of the world’s food supply.
Author: Jennifer Thomson Publisher: Cabi ISBN: 9781789248401 Category : Languages : en Pages : 200
Book Description
Attitudes to GM crops continue to generate tension, even though they have been grown commercially for over 20 years. Negative sentiment towards their development limits their adoption in Western countries, despite there being no evidence of harm to human health. These unfounded concerns about genetically modified crops have also inhibited uptake in many countries throughout Africa and Asia, having a major impact on agricultural productivity and preventing the widespread cultivation of potentially life-saving crops. GM Crops and the Global Divide traces the historical importance that European attitudes to past colonial influences, aid, trade and educational involvement have had on African leaders and their people. The detrimental impact that these attitudes have on agricultural productivity and food security continues to be of growing importance, especially in light of climate change, drought and the potential rise in sea levels - the effects of which could be mitigated by the cultivation of GM and gene-edited crops. Following on from her previous books Genes for Africa, GM Crops: The Impact and the Potential, and Food for Africa:The Life and Work of a Scientist in GM Crops, Jennifer Thomson unravels the reasons behind these negative attitudes towards GM crop production. By addressing the detrimental effects that anti-GM opinions have on nutrition security in developing countries and providing a clear account of the science to counter these attitudes, she hopes to highlight and ultimately bridge this global divide.
Author: Dorte Verner Publisher: World Bank Publications ISBN: 1464817677 Category : Technology & Engineering Languages : en Pages : 235
Book Description
Interestingly, some relief from today's woes may come from ancient human practices. While current agri-food production models rely on abundant supplies of water, energy, and arable land and generate significant greenhouse gas emissions in addition to forest and biodiversity loss, past practices point toward more affordable and sustainable paths. Different forms of insect farming and soilless crop farming, or hydroponics, have existed for centuries. In this report the authors make a persuasive case that frontier agriculture, particularly insect and hydroponic farming, can complement conventional agriculture. Both technologies reuse society's agricultural and organic industrial waste to produce nutritious food and animal feed without continuing to deplete the planet's land and water resources, thereby converting the world's wasteful linear food economy into a sustainable, circular food economy. As the report shows, insect and hydroponic farming can create jobs, diversify livelihoods, improve nutrition, and provide many other benefits in African and fragile, conflict-affected countries. Together with other investments in climate-smart agriculture, such as trees on farms, alternate wetting and drying rice systems, conservation agriculture, and sustainable livestock, these technologies are part of a promising menu of solutions that can help countries move their land, food, water, and agriculture systems toward greater sustainability and reduced emissions. This is a key consideration as the World Bank renews its commitment to support countries' climate action plans. This book is the Bank's first attempt to look at insect and hydroponic farming as possible solutions to the world's climate and food and nutrition security crisis and may represent a new chapter in the Bank's evolving efforts to help feed and sustain the planet.
Author: R.J. Summerfield Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media ISBN: 9400927649 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 1149
Book Description
The genesis of the International Food Legume Research Conference (IFLRC) can be traced back to 1983 - and so this Volume, the Proceedings of that Conference, has had a gestation period of close to five years. Professor Norman Simmonds, the perennial Book Review Editor of Experimental Agriculture, has expressed the opinion (vol. 22, p. 201, 1986) that "Many symposial volumes are just plain awful!" Elsewhere (Nature vol. 312, pp. 201-2, 1984), Anthony Watkinson - then a Commissioning Editor at Oxford University Press has described several reasons which have led him to believe that "Conference proceedings - symposia - are generally disliked . . . . To put it mildly, this type of publication has a bad name". The problems, from an author's perspective, of contributing to any many-authored publication are aired in an exchange of correspondence in Biologist (vol. 30, pp. 123 and 180, 1983; and vol. 31, pp. 3 and 69,1984). And from the editor's viewpoint, D. J. Weatherall - then Nuffield Professor of Clinical Medicine at the University of Oxford - has described (Nature vol. 317, p.
Author: R. L. Blackman Publisher: Wiley ISBN: 9780471489733 Category : Technology & Engineering Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
Aphids are well-known as pests of agriculture, horticulture and forestry, but they are also one of the most biologically interesting groups of plant-feeding insects, and thus have attracted the attention of biologists in many research fields such as ecology, biodiversity, physiology, behaviour and genetics. Following the successful format of previous books on the world's aphids by the same authors, these two volumes provide a comprehensive species-by-species account of the aphids on the world's herbaceous plants and shrubs. They can be used not only as an identification guide and information source for entomologists and taxonomists throughout the world, but also as a unique database for studies of biodiversity and insect-plant relationships. In all, 3120 aphid species in 340 genera are covered, feeding on 2150 genera of host plants. Volume 1 features comprehensive host lists and keys to the aphids colonizing each plant genus. This information is supplemented in Volume 2 by a systematic account of all the aphid species, which provides information on their appearance in life, host range, geographical distribution and life cycles. There are 357 original line drawings, 252 photographs of slide-mounted specimens and 1000 references. Aphids on the World's Herbaceous Plants and Shrubs is the culmination of many years of work by two leading specialists and provides an essential research tool and standard reference work for entomologists in universities and research institutes throughout the world.
Author: Leon F. Hesser Publisher: Leon Hesser ISBN: 9781930754904 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 296
Book Description
The Man Who Fed the World provides a loving and respectful portrait of one of America's greatest heroes. Nobel Peace Prize recipient for averting hunger and famine, Dr. Norman Borlang is credited with saving hundreds of millions of lives from starvation-more than any other person in history? Loved by millions around the world, Dr. Borlang is recognized as one of the most influential men of the twentieth century.
Author: Nigel J. H. Smith Publisher: Cornell University Press ISBN: 1501717944 Category : Technology & Engineering Languages : en Pages : 585
Book Description
The tropics are the source of many of our familiar fruits, vegetables, oils, and spice, as well as such commodities as rubber and wood. Moreover, other tropical fruits and vegetables are being introduced into our markets to offer variety to our diet. Now, as tropical forests are increasingly threatened, we face a double-fold crisis: not only the loss of the plants but also rich pools of potentially useful genes. Wild populations of crop plants harbor genes that can improve the productivity and disease resistance of cultivated crops, many of which are vital to developing economies and to global commerce. Eight chapters of this book are devoted to a variety of tropical crops—beverages, fruit, starch, oil, resins, fuelwood, fodder, spices, timber, and nuts—the history of their domestication, their uses today, and the known extent of their gene pools, both domesticated and wild. Drawing on broad research, the authors also consider conservation strategies such as parks and reserves, corporate holdings, gene banks and tissue culture collections, and debt-for-nature swaps. They stress the need for a sensitive balance between conservation and the economic well-being of local populations. If economic growth is part of the conservation effort, local populations and governments will be more strongly motivated to save their natural resources. Distinctly practical and soundly informative, this book provides insight into the overwhelming abundance of tropical forests, an unsettling sense of what we may lose if they are destroyed, and a deep appreciation for the delicate relationships between tropical forest plants and people around the world.
Author: National Research Council Publisher: National Academies Press ISBN: 030904264X Category : Technology & Engineering Languages : en Pages : 441
Book Description
This fascinating, readable volume is filled with enticing, detailed information about more than 30 different Incan crops that promise to follow the potato's lead and become important contributors to the world's food supply. Some of these overlooked foods offer special advantages for developing nations, such as high nutritional quality and excellent yields. Many are adaptable to areas of the United States. Lost Crops of the Incas includes vivid color photographs of many of the crops and describes the authors' experiences in growing, tasting, and preparing them in different ways. This book is for the gourmet and gourmand alike, as well as gardeners, botanists, farmers, and agricultural specialists in developing countries.
Author: K.P. Prabhakaran Nair Publisher: Elsevier ISBN: 0123846781 Category : Technology & Engineering Languages : en Pages : 366
Book Description
Major tree crops contribute substantially to the economy of many developing countries on the Asian, African and Latin American continents. For example, coffee is the main revenue earner for Kenya. This book provides a comprehensive review of the agronomy, botany, taxonomy, genetics, chemistry, economics, and future global prospects of a range of crops that have great food, industrial and economic value such as cocoa, coffee, cashew, oil palm and natural rubber. - Discusses the major tree crops of great economic value to the developing world - The author is an eminent scientist who has won numerous awards for his work in this area
Author: James C. McCann
Author: James C. McCann
Author: Jennifer Thomson
Author: Dorte Verner
Author: R.J. Summerfield
Author: R. L. Blackman
Author: Leon F. Hesser
Author: Nigel J. H. Smith
Author: 
Author: National Research Council
Author: K.P. Prabhakaran Nair