Harvest of Failure

摘要

Genetic engineering debuted in the 1980s to great fanfare. GE emerged from the exciting discovery that genetic material could be swapped among unrelated organisms — conferring new traits on the recipients. Several related new molecular techniques were hailed as transformative for agriculture, where they would supposedly lead to higher crop yields and end world hunger. Additionally, the new crops would no longer depend on chemical herbicides and insecticides. Most spectacularly, chemical fertilizers would become obsolete because GE crops could be made to convert atmospheric nitrogen to its biologically useful forms.