Additional Readings

Anderson, L. 1999. Genetic Engineering, Food and Our Environment. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Publishers. A beginner's guide to this controversial topic.

Baldwin, A. Dwight Jr., Judith DeLuce, and Carl Pletsch. 1994. Beyond Preservation: restoring and inventing landscapes. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis. A good collection of case studies in landscape restoration.

Benbrook, Charles M. 1996. Pest Management at the Crossroads. Yonkers, NY: Consumers Union. An excellent overview of integrated pest management.

Benbrook, Charles, "Evidence of the Magnitude and Consequences of the Roundup Ready Soybean Yield Drag from University-Based Varietal Trials in 1998." AgBioTech InfoNet Technical Paper #1, July 13, 1999. Available at http://www.biotech-info.net/RR_yield_drag_98.pdf.

Benbrook, Charles. 2001. "Do GM crops mean less pesticide use?" Pesticide Outlook 204-207 October 2001. Although fewer herbicide active ingredients are applied on the average acre of Roundup-Ready soybeans relative to the average conventional acre, the total amount of pesticide applied is higher on the genetically-modified varieties than on traditional crops.

Bergensen, H. O. et al. 1999. Yearbook of International Co-operation on Environment and Development 1999/2000. New York: Earthscan. Environmental policies of the WTO and other international agencies.

Biot, Yvan and Piers M. Blaikie. 1995. Rethinking Research on Land Degradation in Developing Countries. Discussion Paper No 289, Washington, DC: World Bank. A political ecology approach to understanding soil erosion in developing countries.

Bright, Chris. 2001. "The Chocolate Factor." World Watch 14(6): 7-28. Describes how shade-grown cocoa might help protect Brazil's Atlantic Forest. See "New Hope for a Rainforest" in the same issue.

Brown, Kathryn. 2001. "Seeds of Concern." Scientific American 284(4): 50-57. First in a series of special reports on the safety of genetically modified food crops.

Brown, L. 1999. "Feeding nine billion." In State of the World 1999: A Worldwatch Institute Report on Progress Toward a Sustainable Society. New York: Norton. Will there be enough for everyone to eat? This author thinks not.

Brown, Lester. 1997. "Who Will Feed China?" E Magazine 8(1): 36-41. The world's most populous country is industrializing rapidly, and the helter-skelter process is leading to wholesale destruction of cropland and creating a huge international grain deficit.

Charles, Daniel. 2001. Lords of the Harvest: Biotech, Big Money, and the Future of Food. Perseus Books. An investigative journalist gives us a fly-on-the-wall view of the agrobiotech industry.

Conway, Gordon. 2000. "Genetically modified crops: risks and promise." Conservation Ecology 4(1):2 [online] URL: http://www.consecol.org/vol4/iss1/art2. Suggestions for actions to improve research, innovation, and acceptance of GMOs (genetically modified organisms) in developing countries.

Conway, Gordon. 2000. "Food for All in the 21^st Century." Environment January/February 2000: 9-1. Suggests policies for a doubly green revolution that could boost crop yields to keep pace with population growth.

Cordain, L. et al. 2002. "Fatty acid analysis of wild ruminant tissues: evolutionary implications for reducting diet-related chronic disease." European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 56, 181 - 191. The meat of wild animals has less total fat and more omega-3 fatty acids than grain-fed animals. Reverting to a diet more like that of hunter-gatherer societies might be healthier for us.

Crawley, M. et al., 2001. "Transgenic Crops in Natural Habitats." Nature Vol. 409, No. 6821 (February 8, 2001), pgs. 682-683.

Crosby, Alfred. 1997. Germs, Seeds, and Animals: Studies in Ecological History. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe. A study in how rich countries benefit from biological and agricultural resources of poorer countries.

Curtis, T. P., Sloan, W. T. & Scannell, J. W. 2002. "Estimating prokaryotic diversity and its limits". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, doi:10.1073/pnas. 142680199. There could be more species of bacteria in a ton of soil than all the species in the oceans, say UK researchers.

Davison, P. A., Hunter, C. N. & Horton, P. 2002. "Overexpression of beta-carotene hydroxylase enhances stress tolerance in Arabidopsis." Nature 418, 203 - 206, (2002). Extra gene copies could increase crops' natural protection against light and heat.

Daniels, Tom and Deborah Bowers. 1997. Holding Our Ground: Protecting America's Farms and Farmlands. Covelo, CA: Island Press.

Diamond, J. 1998. Guns, Germs, and Steel. New York: W.W. Norton & Co. A fascinating look at how the environment has shaped human cultures.

Dobbs, David. 2000. The Great Gulf: Fishermen, Scientists, and the Struggle to Revive the World's Greatest Fishery. Covelo, CA: Island Press. A fascinating and compelling look at the collapse of the New England cod fishery.

Dower, Roger, et al. 1997. Frontiers of Sustainability: Environmentally Sound Agriculture, Forestry, Transportation, and Power Production. Covelo, CA: Island Press. A plan for achieving sustainable development in the United States.

Drinkwater, L. E., Wagoner, P. & Sarrantonio, M. 1998. "Legume-based cropping systems have reduced carbon and nitrogen losses." Nature 396, 262 - 265, (1998). Organic soils hold nutrients better than those farmed with conventional techniques.

Finney, Bruce P. et al. 2002. "Fisheries productivity in the northeastern Pacific Ocean over the past 2,200 years." Nature 416, 729-733 (18 April 2002). Paleoecological studies suggest that over the past 2,000 years ocean productivity has fluctuated widely. This environmental variable complicates analysis of the effects of global warming and industrial-scale fishing on seafood supplies.

Freking, B.A et al. 2002. "Identification of the single base change causing the callipyge muscle hypertrophy phenotype, the only known example of polar overdominance in Mammals." Genome Research 10.1101/gr.571002 (2002). DNA change between genes causes big-bottomed sheep.

Frongillo, E.A., et al. 2000. "Nutritional consequences of food insecurity in a rural New York State County" Discussion Paper no. 1120-97. Institute for Research on Poverty, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin. Those who can't afford a good diet often buy the wrong kinds of food.

Gardner, Gary and Brian Halweil. 2000. "Escaping Hunger, Escaping Excess." World Watch 13(4): 24-35. Some of us are overfed while others are starving. What can we do about it?

Glatzel, M. et al. 2002. "Sharply increased Creutzfeld-Jakob disease mortality in Switzerland." Lancet 360, 139 - 141, (2002). The number of people dying from sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) has risen sharply in Switzerland. The finding is raising fears that 'mad cow disease' could have spread to humans in another form.

Gerrard, John. 2000. Fundamentals of Soil. Routledge Press. An introduction to soil properties and worldwide classification.

Gollin, Douglas. 1997. Conserving Genetic Resources for Agriculture: Local Farmers, International Organizations, and Intellectual Property Rights. Paper presented to Globalization and Sustainable Livelihood Systems Workshop, Institute for Social, Economic and Ecological Sustainability (ISEES), April 11-12, 1997. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota.

Greenpeace. 1996. "Turning the Tide." Greenpeace Quarterly 1(3):6-8. The reauthorization of the Magnuson Act finally provides some protection for America's fisheries.

Hager, A.G. 1996. "Weed Resistance to Herbicides: Understanding How Resistance Develops in Weeds is the First Line of Defense." Weed Control Manual: Volume 30. Willoughby, Ohio: Meister Publishing Company.

Hall-Spencer, J., Allain, V. & Fossa, J. H. 2002. "Trawling damage to Northeast Atlantic ancient coral reefs." Proceedings of the Royal Academy of Sciences B, (online publication) DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2001.1910 (2002). Trawling is destroying deepwater corals, some of which may be 8,000 years old.

Halweil, Brian. 2000. "Where Have All the Farmers Gone?" World Watch 13(5): 12-28. As farms become industrialized, those who are the most knowledgeable stewards of the land are being forced into servitude or driven out.

Hansen, Laura C. and John J. Obrycki, "Field Deposition of BT Transgenic Corn Pollen: Lethal Effects on the Monarch Butterfly." Oecologia Vol. 125, No. 2 (2000), pgs. 241-248.

Hardell, Lennart and Mikael Eriksson. "A Case-Control Study of Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma and Exposure to Pesticides." Cancer Vol. 85, No. 6 (March 15, 1999), pgs. 1353-1360.

Hellmich, R. L. et al. "Monarch larvae sensitivity to Bacillus thuringiensis purified proteins and pollen." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, in press (2001).

Hilbeck, A et al. "Effects of Transgenic Bacillus thuringiensis corn-fed prey on Mortality and Development Time of Immature Chysoperla carnea (Neuroptera: Chrysopidae)." EnvironmentaL Entomology Vol. 27, No. 2 (April 1998), pgs. 480-487.

Holdrege, Craig and Steve Talbott. 2001. "Sowing Technology." Sierra 86(4): 34-47. A series on biotechnology.

Hopper, K., et al. 1997. "Analysis of Breast Milk to Assess Exposure to Chlorinated Contaminants in Kazakhstan." Environmental Health Perspectives 105(11):1250-1254.

Huang, J., Rozelle, S., Pray, C. & Wang, Q. "Plant biotechnology in China." Science 295, 674 - 677, (2002). China is spending more on plant biotechnology products than country outside North America.

Iudicello, S. et al. 1999. Fish, Markets, and Fishermen: The Economics of Overfishing. Covelo, CA: Island Press. Why are world fisheries collapsing and what can be done about it?

Johnson, D.G. 2000. "Population, food and knowledge." American Economic Review 90(1): 1-14. Argues that we need more agricultural research if we are to feed everyone.

Kaplinsky N. et al., "Maize transgene results in Mexico are artifacts." Nature 416: 601. Shows that reports of GMO contamination in Mexico are incorrect.

Kimbrell, Andrew (ed). 2002. Fatal Harvest : The Tragedy of Industrial Agriculture. Island Press. An impressive collection of essays arguing for industrial agriculture and a return to an agrarian way of life.

Kleijn, D., Berendse, F. Smit, R. & Niels, G. 2001. "Agri-environment schemes do not effectively protect biodiversity in Dutch agricultural landscapes." Nature 413, 723-725 (2001)

Kong, Q. et al. 2001. "Oral immunization with hepatitis B surface antigen expressed in transgenic plants." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 98, 11539 - 11544, (2002). GMO crops could provide edible vaccines.

Kratz, Vikky. 2001. "The Hidden Life of a Biogineered Meal." Sierra 103(1): 24-25. A brief, but useful summary of what's in our food.

Krimsky, Sheldon and Roger Wrubel. 1996. Agricultural Biotechnology and the Environment. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press. A comprehensive and thoughtful analysis of both the promise and the hazards of biotechnology as it is being applied in agriculture.

Lappe, Marc and Britt Bailey. 1998. Against the Grain : Biotechnology and the Corporate Takeover of Your Food. Covelo, CA: Island Press. A hard-hitting critique of biotechnology and genetically modified food crops.

Lewis, W.J., et al. 1997. "A total system approach to sustainable pest management." Procedures of the National Academy of Sciences, USA 94(23):12243-12248. A fundamental shift to a total system approach for crop protection is urged to resolve escalating economic and environmental consequences of combating agricultural pests.

Losey, J. E., L.S. Rayor, & M.E. Carter. "Transgenic pollen harms monarch larvae." Nature 399, 214, (1999).

Mader, P.et al. 2002. "Soil fertility and biodiversity in organic farming." Science 296, 1694 - 1697, (2002). A long-term study of organic farms Switzerland shows lower yields but more healthy fields than conventional agriculture.

Manning, Richard. 2000. Food's Frontier: The Next Green Revolution. New York: North Point Press. Hopeful stories of development of sustainable agriculture around the world.

Martineau, Belinda. 2001. First Fruit: The Creation of the Flavr SavrTM Tomato and the Birth of Biotech Food. McGraw Hill. A geneticist explores the development and eventual failure of the Flavr Savr tomato.

McCann, E., et al. 1997. "Environmental Awareness, Economic Orientation, and Farming Practices: A Comparison of Organic and Conventional Farmers." Environmental Management 21(5):747-758. An examination of similarities and differences in awareness of and concern for environmental problems between organic and conventional farmers.

Mittal, Anuradha. 1997. "Food Security: A Human Right." Earth Island Journal 12(1):24-26. The case for recognizing the human right to food.

Mittal, Anuradha. 2000. "Behind Indonesia's Hunger Myth." Earth Island Journal 14(4):32-34. Claims of food shortages are used as an excuse for repression.

Motavalli, Jim. 2002. "Across the Great Divide Environmentalists and Animal Rights Activists Battle Over Vegetarianism." E Magazine Vol XIII(1): Looks at why environmental and animal rights groups tend to antagonize one another, rather than work together, when it comes to vegetarianism.

Musick, J.A. et al., November 2000. "Marine, estuarine, and diadromous fish stocks at risk of extinction in North America (exclusive of pacific salmonoids)." Fisheries 25[11]:6 -10. Makes a case for protection of endangered fish stocks.

National Research Council. 1996. Ecologically Based Pest Management: New Solutions for a New Century. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. A good survey of biocontrol.

Nestle, Marion. 2002. Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health. University of California Press. A convincing description of how the food industry shapes government policy and public opinion.

Normile, Dennis. 2000. "Hopes Grow for Hybrid Rice to Feed Developing World." Science (US) April 21, 2000, vol 288(5465): 429. Progress towards high-yielding rice varieties at the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines.

Norse, E. and L. Watling. 1999. "Clearcutting the Ocean Floor." Earth Island Journal Summer 1999: 29-32. Trawling for bottom fish is destroying ocean habitat.

Oberhauser, K. S. et al. Temporal and spatial overlap between monarch larvae and corn pollen. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, in press (2001).

Papadaki, A. & Scott, J. A. 2002. "The impact on eating habits of temporary translocation from a Mediterranean to a Northern European environment." European Journal of Clinical Nutrition 56, 455 - 461, (2002). A group of Greek students who had eaten a healthy Mediterranean diet at home, switched to chips and savory snacks washed down with sugary drinks and beer while in Scotland.

Pauly, Daniel, et al. 2002. "Towards sustainability in world fisheries." Zoning the oceans into unfished marine reserves and areas with limited levels of fishing effort may allow sustainable fisheries.

Pimentel, D. 1995. "Protecting Crops." pp. 49-66 in The Literature of Crop Science, W.C. Olsen, ed. Ithica, NY and London: Cornell University Press. A good survey of agricultural pesticide use in world agriculture.

Pleasants, J. M. et al. 2001 "Corn pollen distribution on milkweeds in and near cornfields." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Pollan, Michael. 2002. "Power Steer." New York Times Magazine 31 Mar 2002 p 44-77. A sobering look at how the U. S. meat industry works.

Postel, Sandra. 2001. "Growing More Food with Less Water." Scientific American 284(2): 46-51. Argues that if the world hopes to feed growing populations, irrigation must become less wasteful and more widespread.

Quist, David & Ignacio H. Chapela. "Transgenic DNA introgressed into traditional maize landraces in Oaxaca, Mexico." Nature 414, 541-543 (29 November 2001). DNA from transgenic maize was reported in native varieties in Oaxaca, Mexico where the crop is thought to have originated. This report was subsequently withdrawn due to experimental errors.

Reganold, J. P., Glover, J. D., Andrews, P. K.& Hinman, H. R.2001. "Sustainability of three apple production systems." Nature 410, 926 - 930, (2001). Organic apple orchards in the United States were more profitable and sustainable than non-organic ones.

Rissler, Jane and Margaret Mellon. 1996. The Ecological Risks of Engineered Crops. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Suggests ways to evaluate ecological risks of genetically modified organisms.

Rogers, P., et al. 1999. "Biological Warfare against Crops." Scientific American 280(6): 70-75. Intentionally releasing organisms that kill an enemy's food crops is a potentially devastating weapon of warfare and terrorism.

Rosset, Peter and Medea Benjamin. 1994. Greening the Revolution: Cuba's Experiment with Organic Agriculture. Melbourne, Australia: Ocean Press.

Royal Society of Canada. 2001. Elements of precaution: recommendations for the regulation of food biotechnology in Canada (Ottawa: Royal Society of Canada, January 2001). Available from the Royal Society at (Ottawa, Canada) phone: (613) 991-6990 or at http://www.rsc.ca/foodbiotechnology/-GMreportEN.pdf.

Ruttan, Vernon W. 1999. "The Transition to Agricultural Sustainability." Proceedings of the National Academy of Science USA. Vol. 96, pages 5960-5967. A distinguished economist looks at technological innovation and sustainability.

Salanoubat, M. 2002. "Genome sequence of the plant pathogen Ralstonia solanacearum." Nature 415, 497 - 502, (2002). Southern wilt or brown may be the most important plant disease in the world. Sequencing its genome may reveal ways to combat this important plant pathogen.

Saxena, Deepak, et al, "Insecticidal Toxin in Root Exudates from BT Corn." Nature Vol. 402, No. 6761 (December 2, 1999), pg. 480. Genetically modified corn plants can contaminate soil.

Schettler, Ted, et al. 1999. Generations at Risk: Reproductive Health and the Environment. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Presents evidence that toxic chemicals can have lifelong, even intergenerational effects on human reproduction and development.

Schlosser, Eric. 2001. Fast Food Nation. Houghton Mifflin. A muckraking exposé of how the fast food industry has transformed America's diet, landscape, economy, and workforce.

Sears, M. K. et al. 2001. "Impact of Bt corn pollen on monarch butterfly populations: A risk assessment." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,

Smil, Vaclav. 2000. Feeding the World: A Challenge for the Twenty-First Century. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. How will we feed ten billion people?

Smil, Vaclav. 2001. Enriching the Earth: Fritz Haber, Carl Bosch, and the Transformation of World Food Production. MIT Press. The benefits and problems associated with synthetic nitrogen fertilizers.

Stanley-Horn, D. E. 2001. Assessing the impact of Cry1Ab-expressing corn pollen on monarch butterfly larvae in field studies. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, (2001).

Steinfeld, Carol. 1997. " Permaculture." Environmental Encyclopedia 2e. Cunningham, William P., et al. eds. Detroit, MI: Gale Research.

Tillman, David, et al. 2002. "Agricultural sustainability and intensive production practices." Nature 418, 671 - 677 (2002). Agriculture will shape, perhaps irreversibly, the surface of the Earth in the coming decades.

Tollenaar, M. 1985. "What is the current upper limit of corn productivity?" Proceedings of the Conference on Physiology, Biochemistry and Chemistry Associated with Maximum Yield Corn. Foundation for Agronomic Research and Potash and Phosphate Institute. St Louis Missouri, 11-12 Nov. 1985. The author calculated that the highest practical yield for maize (corn) would be 500 bu/acre (37 t/ha) but that the maximum theoretical yield is 1,312 bu/acre (83.3 t/ha).

Townsend, M. S., Peerson, J., Love, B., Achterberg, C. & Murphy, S. P. 2001. "Food insecurity is positively related to overweight in women." Journal of Nutrition, 131, 1738 - 1745, (2001). Women who report not having enough to eat are more likely to be overweight than those who have plenty.

Trewayas, Anthony. 2002. "Malthus foiled again and again." Nature 418, 668 - 670 (2002). Increased efficiency has averted "Malthusian disasters" but as the population grows towards nine billion, new methods must be found to grow food while preserving biodiversity.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. "Biopesticide Fact Sheet: Bacillis thuringiensis Cry1Ab Delta-Endotoxin and the Genetic Material Necessary for Its Production (Plasmid Vector pCIB4431) in Corn [Event 176]" April 2000. EPA Publication No. 730-F-00-003. Available at http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/biopesticides/factsheets/fs006458t.htm.

Vorley, Bill and Dennis Keeney, eds. 1998. Bugs in the System; Reinventing the Pesticide Industry for Sustainable Agriculture. Covelo, CA: Island Press. The realities of pesticide production and use, the leverage points for change, and potential consequences of sustainability.

Walsh, Lance P. et al, "Roundup Inhibits Steroidogenesis by Disrupting Steroidogenic Acute Regulatory (StAR) Protein Expression." Environmental Health Perspectives Vol. 108, No. 8 (August 2000), pgs. 769-776.

Watson, R. Pauly, D. "Systematic distortions in world fisheries catch trends." Nature 414, 534 - 536, (2001). Inaccurate reporting of fish catches has created a false impression that fish stocks are plentiful, but new. Calculations reveal a global industry and food supply in peril.

Watling, Les and Elliott A. Norse. 1998. "Disturbance of the Seabed by Mobile Fishing Gear: A Comparison to Forest Clearcutting." Conservation Biology Vol. 12, No. 6. (Dec., 1998), pp. 1180-1197. Trawling for bottom fish causes damage equivalent to forest clearcutting.

Webster, D. E. et al. 2002. "Successful boosting of a DNA measles immunization with an oral plant-derived measles virus vaccine." Journal of Virology 76, 7910 - 7912, (2002). GMO crops could provide edible antigens.

Whitefield, P. 2000. Permaculture in an Nutshell. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Publishers. A beginner's guide to permaculture.

Whiteside, M. 1999. Living Farms: Encouraging Sustainable Smallholders in Southern Africa. New York: Earthscan. An interdisciplinary look at land security and sustainability of family farms in South Africa.

Wohlmeyer, Heinrich nd Theodor Quendler. 2002. The WTO, Agriculture and Sustainable Development. Greenleaf Press. Although liberalized world trade in agriculture and forest products are major agenda items for the WTO, sustainability in these areas is only tangentially mentioned in WTO documents.

Wolfenbarger, L. L. and P.R. Phifer. "The Ecological Risks and Benefits of Genetically Engineered Plants." Science Vol. 290 No. 5499 (December 15, 2000) pgs. 2088-2093. A comprehensive survey of the ecological risks of genetically modified organisms.

World Bank. 1996. Integrated Pest Management: Strategy and Policy Options for Promoting Effective Implementation. Environmentally Sustainable Development. Suggestions for promoting IPM.

Zangerl, A.R. et al. 2001. "Effects of exposure to event 176 Bacillus thuringiensis corn pollen on monarch and black swallowtail caterpillars under field conditions." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, in press (2001).

Zhu, Y. et al. Genetic diversity and disease control in rice. Nature 406, 718 - 722, (2000). Planting different varieties of rice together helps combat diseases.