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2.0 out of 5 stars
Largely inaccessible 'expert' guide to an important subject, 1 Mar 2001
By A Customer
Seeding Solutions attempts to provide some much needed clarity to the questions in the Intellectual Property debate, particularly in connection with lab-developed germplasm and crop varieties. The first half of the book, which sets out the context of the debate, is interesting in parts. For example, arresting details include the amazing advances in mammalian cloning and the incredible acceleration in gene sequencing, which enables a team of scientists to achieve in one day what until recently would have taken one thousand researchers ten years. And the second half of the book, which has been written with policy-makers in mind, certainly manages to convey the complexity both of the issues and the treaties and conventions which have attempted to define them. To help the reader cope with the tortuous nature of the subject, some help is given in the form of 'Viewpoint boxes', which summarise a few of the major positions in a debate. These are the most accessible parts of the book. Issues such as the rights of farmers to save seed, or the development of 'Terminator' seeds to prevent them doing so, provoke polar disagreements, and few would disagree that unless the seed breeders can make a profit, there simply will not be the incentive to develop higher yielding, or hardier varieties. Unfortunately the bulk of Seeding Solutions has not been written by an author with a passionate interest in opening people's eyes to the issues. Rather it has been put together by a group of experts who appear unconcerned that much of the final product is so dense as to be inaccessible to all but the most determined. As the book says, advances in technology are happening faster than social policies can be devised to guide them, or legal systems can evolve to address them. It advocates the need for informed public debate on the issues, not just decisions made by 'expert' panels. That may be true, but if an informed public is what the writers want, disappointingly this book will not be a good starting point.
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