Seeds of Science: Why We Got It So Wrong On GMOs

In Seeds of Science, eco-activist Mark Lynas lifts the lid on the controversial story and misunderstood science of GMOs. In the mid-1990s, as the global media stirred up a panic about the risks of genetically modified crops, Lynas destroyed crop fields and spoke out in the press…until he realized he was wrong. This book explains why.

Twenty years after GMO crops became a source of controversy, scientists are working hard to devise new farming methods that will meet the world's food requirements while causing the minimum amount of ecological harm. We're now discovering that the environmentalist mainstream might have misjudged the GMO issue completely, and as a consequence we have forfeited two decades' worth of scientific progress in perhaps the most vital area of human need: food.

No one is more aware of this fact than Mark Lynas. Starting out as one of the leading activists in the fight against GMOs-from destroying experimental crop fields to leading the charge in the press-in 2013 Lynas famously admitted that he got it all wrong. Lynas takes us back to the origins of the technology, and examines the histories of the people and companies who pioneered it. He explains what lead him to question his assumptions on GMOs, and how he is currently tracking poverty by using genetic modification to encourage better harvests.

Seeds of Science provides an explanation of the research that has enabled this technology-something which led to countless misconceptions about a field that could provide perhaps the only solution to a planet with a population of ten billion people.