Food for Africa - The life and work of a scientist in GM crops (Paperback)

She has addressed the world's leaders at the UN. She has sat in the hot seat at the World Economic Forum in Davos persuading economists that genetically modified food is the answer to food security in Africa. She has faced vitriolic activists on television and explained the facts and fallacies of genetic engineering. And she has won the L'Oreal Women in Science award. So how did someone who thought she would choose the career of a teacher end up as a microbiologist in a very male-dominated arena and become one of the world's leading scientific advisors? In Food for Africa, Jennifer Thomson traces through anecdote and science the development of a hotly contended area of research, from the dawn of genetic engineering in the USA in 1974, through the early stages of its uptake in South Africa to the current situation in which approximately 80% of maize in South Africa is genetically modified for drought resistance. Through her own story of how she came to choose GM as a career and her path-breaking involvement in the development of GM research, she describes the spread of this technology into other parts of Africa and her venture into unknown territory to develop crops resistant to drought, insects and viruses, a journey in which she came up against the multinational Monsanto. The book describes a remarkable personal and scientific evolution and looks to a future in which staple crops may be grown in difficult conditions by smallholder farmers and help Africans achieve food security.