FEEDING THE PLANET: Environmental Protection through Sustainable Agriculture -- Contents -- Editor's Foreword -- Preface -- Introduction -- 1 Human Population and Ecological Consequences -- Early Phase and the Neolithic Revolution -- The Scientific/Technological Revolution -- Reduced Biodiversity -- Ambivalence of Progress -- Priority of Existential Basic Needs -- Practical Consequences -- The Challenge -- Summary The alarming increase in the human population, with its immense need for agriculturally productive land and its growing environmental degradation, has pushed the Earth's biosphere to the breaking point. Qualitative progress must quickly lead to a type of agriculture that combines high productivity with a greatly reduced environmental impact and the sustainable protection of endangered species, water resources, soils and the climate. An analysis of the realistic possibilities thus concent -- 2 Historical Development of Agriculture, Urban Lifestyles and Man's Perception of Nature -- Early Stages of Cultural Evolution -- The Fertile Crescent -- Advanced Civilizations of the Bronze Age -- European Antiquity in Greece and Rome -- From the Middle Ages to the Modern Era -- The Present -- Summary Three major developmental steps were crucial for the rapid cultural evolution of humans: upright posture (including all the subsequent anatomical consequences right up to intelligence and language), a settled life as a result of agriculture and animal husbandry, and the extension of the range of action through science and technology. The transformation from appropriation to the production of food fostered new forms of settlement and the creation of sophisticated social structures with a -- 3 Man and His Environment -- The First Two Phases: Founding and Securing Human Existence -- The Goal in Retrospect -- Resolved and Unresolved Dangers.

The Spread of Pathogens -- The Turning Point: From Being Threatened by Nature to Threatening Nature Itself -- The Third Phase: Protection of the Biosphere -- Conflicting Aspects of Agriculture -- Fertilization Against Soil Depletion -- Fighting Weeds -- Fighting Pathogens and Animal Pests -- Fertilization and Protection of Plants: Intensive - Alternative - Integrated -- Summary With reference to the environment, past human history can be divided into three phases whose transitions are marked by the Neolithic and the Scientific/Technological Revolutions. The first phase involved the founding of human existence while the second was concerned with securing it. We presently find ourselves in a decisive stage of the third phase with overriding emphasis on securing a biosphere that tolerates and sustains a dangerously large human population. Providing adequate amount -- 4 Crop Plant Breeding -- Requirements of Our Diet -- Genetic Variability -- The Origins of Our Most Important Crops -- Breeding by Selection: An Ancient Method -- Cross-breeding: Applied Genetics -- Possibilities and Limits of Cross-breeding -- Cereals as an Example -- Wheat: A Natural Hybrid -- Triticale: An Extreme Case of Hybridization -- Weeds Become Crops: Oats and Rye -- Special Features of Corn, Rapeseed and Sugar Beet -- The Potato as an Example -- Tissue and Cell Culture -- Summary The breeding of food plants aims at the creation of cultivars that yield the greatest possible amounts of high-quality food under particular environmental and agricultural conditions. This goal has been followed for approximately 10,000 years -- at first with the use of "blind" breeding by selection, and for the past 100 years by combining selection with specifically target-oriented, science-based cross-breeding. More recently, cross-breeding has been complemented by the chemical or physic.

5 Genetic Engineering in Research and Application -- Genetic Engineering: A New Branch of Biotechnology -- Inheritance from a Bio-molecular Perspective -- The Technology of Gene Transfer -- Genetic Engineering with Bacteria -- Medical Research -- Genetic Engineering in Plant Breeding -- Insect Resistance -- Herbicide Tolerance -- Diagnostics -- Summary Genetic engineering is the practical application of molecular biology. In contrast to conventional breeding by crossing and selection, where genes can only be indirectly recognized through observable heritable traits, genetic engineering uses individual genes with known molecular functions. In principle, every gene can be transferred to every organism. The gene has to have a species-appropriate regulatory unit (promoter) that specifically regulates its expression through the perception o -- 6 Old and New Breeding Goals -- The Need for Research -- Genetic Engineering: Not a Substitute, Rather an Aid to Conventional Plant Breeding -- Maintenance Breeding -- Food Quality -- Golden Rice -- Yield Potential -- Vitality and Yield Reliability -- Vaccines in Foodstuffs -- Developing Countries as the Main Target Group -- Summary Two main goals have determined the breeding of food plants since the very beginning of agriculture: the quality and the quantity of the human diet. A third important goal, environmental protection, has recently been added, particularly the breeding of plants which demand fewer pesticides. On the one hand, the amount of crop yield is dependent on genetically determined factors (yield potential and vitality) and, on the other, on the conditions of cultivation. While the maintenance of cult -- 7 Ethical Evaluation of Genetic Engineering -- Science and Responsibility -- Technology, Economics, the State, and Politics -- Risks and Opportunities of Genetic Engineering -- Fear and Ignorance.

The European Perspective -- Feared Consequences -- Self-imposed Rules and Subsequent Laws -- Science and the General Public -- Relative Criteria -- Summary Ethical scales of value are relative and based on the definition of goals. The decisive criterion for the ethical evaluation of plant genetic engineering is the comparison of an increased intervention in the evolution of food plants (e.g. by crossing species boundaries) with an ecological disaster caused by the overuse of our biosphere, primarily to produce enough food for the human population. Although genetic engineering is still in an early phase of its practical application, it has c -- 8 Basic Prerequisites for Securing Human Nourishment -- The Global Perspective -- Population Growth -- Poverty and Wealth -- The Green Revolution -- Vision of a Doubly Green Revolution -- The Biological Limits of Agricultural Productivity -- Weather, Climate, and Environment -- Species Diversity - Biodiversity - Cultivar Diversity -- Water as a Resource -- Energy as a Resource -- Centers of Production and Centers of Demand -- Dietary Habits -- Consumption of Meat and Fish -- Political Decisions -- Helping People to Help Themselves -- Progress through Solidarity -- Summary The sustainable securing of food for all humans requires a drastic change in our dealing with natural resources, as well as the elimination of hunger and poverty as the main causes of the continuing population growth. Agricultural productivity can be significantly enhanced, especially in developing countries, through improvements in breeding methods, farming technology, and the global sociopolitical, economic, and infrastructural conditions. On the other hand, this productivity is increa -- 9 Conclusions for Practical Realization -- Orientation on Primary Goals -- Extended Protection of Species -- Plant Genetic Engineering.

Guidelines and Laws -- Measures in Other Areas -- Bread and Circuses -- Summary The technological application of scientific knowledge has to respect the priorities of established ethical criteria. Absolute priority has to consist in securing the existence of humans and their environment. This requires a fundamental change in the use of natural resources, including an ecologically acceptable and at the same time highly productive form of agriculture. To the extent that genetic engineering is able to serve as an aid to plant breeding, it should be applied as long as i -- Afterword -- Glossary -- References and Recommendations for Further Reading -- Picture credits.