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
Agriculture provides 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.