Yesterday at our weekly selection meeting, we ordered a new mystery by Peter Pringle. Day of the Dandelion is a thriller that brings together the Royal Botanic Gardens, the Secret Service and genetically modified foods. Governments and private companies fight to patent a process enabling plants to reproduce without male pollen. The stakes are high and various people go missing.
In 2005, Pringle published Food, Inc.: Mendel to Monsanto.. the Perils and Promise of the Biotech Harvest. His journalistic investigation shows false promises, propaganda and fear mongering on both the corporate giant and the anticorporate ecowarrior side of the battle over genetically modified food. He re-visits the history of experiments that failed or were abandoned.
He looks at transgenic technology, in which foreign genes (from fireflies or chicken) are inserted into corn, potatoes or rice. There is a huge potential upside to this business of improving the world's food supply and also the real possibilities of disaster.
Pringle has launched two ways of bringing attention to this timely topic.