"In polite company, the best social strategy has usually been not to talk about these ideas at all," he writes. But in this timely book, Paarlberg, a political scientist, makes a strong argument: Europeans, who have so much food they do not need the help of science to make more, are pushing their prejudices on Africa, which still relies on foreign aid to feed its people.
He calls on global policymakers to renew investment in agricultural science and to stop imposing visions of "organic food purity" on a continent that has never had a green revolution. As governments look for ways of tackling what is now commonly called a "global food crisis" with unprecedented price increases in basic foodstuffs, this book offers welcome food for thought.
Starved for Science: How Biotechnology Is Being Kept Out of Africa
Robert Paarlberg
Harvard University Press, 2008
— By Jenny Wiggins
https://www.ft.com
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008