Food, Agriculture and General Science Articles
One of the goals of the Bioscience Resource Project is to draw attention to research articles and documents of exceptional quality and interest. The links may take you to other websites.
Food and Agriculture Articles
Can the Poor Help GM crops? Technology, Representation and Cotton in the Makhatini Flats, S. Africa
by Harald Witt et al.; Review of African Political Economy 33: 497:513
The adoption of Genetically Modified (GM) cotton in South Africa's Makhathini Flats since 1998 is one of the most widely cited GM success stories. Witt, Patel and Schnurr find instead that the privileging of GM adopters and lack of choice appears to better explain patterns of uptake.
Agricultural Futures: What lies beyond ‘Modern Agriculture’
by Norman Uphoff pp. 13-19 of the TAA Sept 2007 Newsletter
What general principles should guide scientists, farmers and policy makers through the challenges expected during the next century? Norman Uphoff clearly outlines the defining characteristics of ‘modern’ agriculture and discusses the 21st Century forces and trends (e.g. land, water and energy availability) that will play a large role in shaping ‘post-modern’ agriculture. He uses SRI (the System of Rice Intensification), as one example of the type of agro-ecological approach to agricultural production that he predicts will of necessity underpin ‘post-modern’ food and fiber production systems.
An assessment of the total external costs of UK agriculture (2000)
by Jules Pretty et al.; Agricultural Systems 65:113-136
Externalities are social, environmental or economic costs of an activity that are not included in the product price of that activity. Quantification of externalities helps identify negative impacts as a guide to policy. Though this study excluded the costs of long-term and chronic illnesses due to pesticide exposure, the authors estimated current methods of UK agriculture cost society £208 per hectare per year. The authors consider this a lower boundary figure.
Biofuels: Environmental Consequences and Interactions with Changing Land Use
by R.W. Howarth and S. Bringezu, editors. 2009
Surrounded by hype, biofuels urgently need a rigorous and wide-ranging assessment of their value. This report is a genuine attempt to do that by more than 75 scientists from 21 countries and a wide diversity of disciplines. It tackles questions like can biofuels work on local scales, on degraded land or using waste products, and should they ever be integrated into liquid fuels? Other questions tackled include the prospects for new technologies, for maximising other social benefits, and biofuels in developing countries.
Breeding Resistance to Special Interests (2006)
by Professor Stephen Jones
Biotechnology, more than anything else, is about ownership. So where does that leave publicly funded plant breeders who do not wish to diminish farmers rights?
CAFO's Uncovered (2008)
from the Union of Concerned Scientists and a Pew Commision Report: Putting meat on the table: Industrial Farm Animal Production in America
Concentrated animal feeding operations of swine, cows and chickens are spreading across the globe and their sizes are increasing. Two reports examine critical questions about them: are they safe for the environment and public health, and are they necessary to produce affordable food?
Case For Caution Revisited: Health and Environmental Impacts of Sewage Sludges (2008)
by Ellen Harrison and Murray McBride
Since the original US approval of sewage sludge applications in agriculture, much has changed, including a wealth of new research on hazards due to pathogens, heavy metals, endocrine disruptors, antibiotics (including microban), flame retardants and other persistent organic pollutants. This research includes not only the toxicity of these chemicals and pathogens but also their behaviour in the environment.
Published by Cornell Waste Management Institute, this report is a reading list of recent papers raising concerns about the agricultural application of sewage sludge.
Corporate Power in the Global Food system (2005)
Report to the Agribusiness Accountability Initiative Conference.
Vertical integration, horizontal integration and the removal of governments and individuals from decision-making in the global food system. A short summary and overview. "The dream of many scientists doing basic research, research that usually requires a huge input of private and public capital, is that their efforts will someday help feed the hungry people in the world. If present structural arrangements continue their current trends, this dream of scientists will remain just that-a dream."
Detection of RNA variants transcribed from the transgene in Roundup Ready soybean (2005)
by Andreas Rang et al. European Food Research and Technology 220: 438-443
The nopaline synthase termination sequence is used in almost every transgene construct in commercial use. Its functionality has never been meaningfully tested but this paper suggests that in the RRSoybean event (40-3-2) transcription runs through the termination sequence and into the scrambled DNA beyond.
Safety Testing and Regulation of Genetically Engineered Foods (2004)
by W. Freese and D. Schubert in Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering Reviews Vol 21: 299-324
A sophisticated and robust assessment of the US regulatory system for the approval of transgenic food crops. Utilises Bt Corn as a case study.
Science, law, and politics in FDA's genetically engineered foods policy: scientific concerns (2005)
by David Pelletier; Nutrition Reviews 63: 210-23
This paper discusses the urgent need for nutritionists to define safe, unsafe, desirable and indifferent levels of nutrients and toxins in food plants. This is necessary so that breeders can select and reject appropriate lines and enable regulators to make scientifically informed decisions.
Sex, Lies and Herbicides: the truth about atrazine (2005)
by Professor Tyrone B Hayes
The remarkable story of one Professor's visit to Washington and why he went there. At the link click on: From silent spring to silent night: endocrine disruption, amphibian declines and environmental justice
Still No Free Lunch: Nutrient levels in US food supply eroded by pursuit of high yields (2007)
This report summarises findings from the primary literature on trends in the yield density of modern cultivars grown under typical conditions.This report is from The Organic Centre
Stopping the rot in nutrition science (2006)
by Barrie Margetts
The Editor-in-Chief of the scientific journal Public Health Nutrition on commercially motivated and sometimes fraudulent nutrition research.
The Rome Declaration on World Food Security (1996)
We, the Heads of State and Government, or our representatives, gathered at the World Food Summit at the invitation of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, reaffirm the right of everyone to have access to safe and nutritious food, consistent with the right to adequate food and the fundamental right of everyone to be free from hunger.
We pledge our political will and our common and national commitment to achieving food security for all....
Transgenic Expression of Bean-alpha Amylase Inhibitor in Peas Results in...and Immunogenicity (2005)
by Vanessa Prescott et al. J. Agricultural and Food Chemistry 53: 9023-9030
Statements about the food safety of GMOs usually explicitly say or imply that no credible danger to human health has ever been identified from a commercial transgenic plant. These statements, however, are only true in the narrowest possible sense. This paper describes harm to mice from a transgenic pea engineered to contain a bean alpha-amylase protein. The paper demonstrated an inflammatory response to the transgenic peas and immunological cross-priming against heterogenous proteins that was not observed in non-transgenic peas. The authors hypothesised that expression by the peas of a structural variant of the alpha amylase was the cause of this immunological reaction. No mechanism was established for this, however. Following these findings, this insect-resistance project was abandoned.
General Science Articles
A New Trade Framework for Global Healthcare R&D. (2004)
by Tim Hubbard and James Love; PLoS Biol 2(2): e52
It is a widely held belief that the private sector plays a key role in the development of new medicines and other bioscience innovations and that patents are necessary to incentivise their investment. The granting of monopoly patents is however only one way to finance R&D and it has become increasingly difficult to ignore the shortcomings of the patent system. Patents, among other problems, inhibit data sharing in science, restrict access to medicines and focus R&D on diseases of wealthy patients. This article is a good introduction to the reports and organisations calling for alternative systems to finance R&D. Among the possibilities discussed are that governments offer prizes instead of patent protection.
Boundaries of Science (1994)
by Thomas F. Gieryn
One of the great articles about science. A monument to clarity and the perfect advert for sociology of science. If you have never read an article originating from science and technology studies, this may change the way you think about science forever.
Ch 18 in: Handbook of Science and Technology Studies, eds. S. Jasanoff, G. Markle, J. Peterson, T. Pinch; Sage publications.
Is Bayh-Dole Good for Developing Countries? Lessons from the US Experience (2008)
by So et al. PLoS Biology Vol. 6 (10) e262
Many developing countries are busy implementing their own versions of the Bayh-Dole act. The Bayh-Dole act encouraged US Universities to issue patents and to commercialise their research. This legislation has nevertheless had major negative implications for scientific openness and resulted in institutionalised conflicts of interest. Barely mentioned here, however, are negative unintended effects on the public interest research mission of science, which in many fields has collapsed, and which is arguably the biggest casualty of Bayh-Dole.
Model Scientists (2008)
by Randy Wayne and Mark Staves Communicative and Integrative Biology 1: 1-7
The historical trajectory of scientific discovery can be seen as a series of peaks and plateaus, the latter occurring when strong external pressures push science in a fixed direction. This paper discusses external pressures past and present and offers some antidotes, including an extensive and valuable reading list.
Research Practices in need of Examination and Improvement (2001)
by Harold Hillman; Science and Engineering Ethics 7: 7-14
Is this the most interesting science paper never cited? Harold Hillman discusses various defects and shortcomings in common research methodologies. In particular, he pinpoints the assumptions that researchers use in their everyday experiments as particularly problematic. As a case in point, he identifies 24 assumptions involved in the subcellular fractionation of an enzyme activity. We suspect this paper could be profitably read by any scientist.
Sex, Lies and Social Science (1995)
by Richard Lewontin New York Review of Books
A social science report is examined in detail. From 1995 but a wonderful read nevertheless ($3 or a subscription required).
Unbalanced Research (2001)
by Carl Persson, J. Erjefalt, L. Uller, M. Andersson, L. Greiff; TRENDS in Pharmacological Sciences 22:538-541
If you work in the biological sciences you probably work on one of the following model systems: Arabidopsis, Drosophila, C. elegans, cell cultures, etc. Model systems are easy to work on and easy to get funded, but without a great deal of care they can lead you seriously astray. Do we give this possibility the consideration it deserves?
