Harvard University Press Publicity Blog

How Biotechnology Is Being Kept Out of Africa

Robert Paarlberg, in a recent Reason interview:

My students know just what kind of food system they want: a food system that isn’t based on industrial scale monoculture. They want instead small farms built around nature imitating polycultures. They don’t want chemical use; they certainly don’t want genetic engineering. They want slow food instead of fast food. They’ve got this image of what would be better than what we have now. And what they probably don’t realize is that Africa is an extreme version of that fantasy. If we were producing our own food that way, 60 percent of us would still be farming and would be earning a dollar a day, and a third of us would be malnourished. I’m trying to find some way to honor the rejection that my students have for some aspects of modern farming, but I don’t want them to fantasize about the exact opposite.

This and other dicey issues are tackled with grace by the author of Starved for Science: How Biotechnology Is Being Kept Out of Africa, out now from HUP. Paarlberg, an advocate of GMO seed varieties for African fams, takes this unpopular position because he believes that improvements in seed varieties and farming techniques are African farmers' ticket out of a low-yield agriculture that keeps most of them mired in hunger and poverty. He wrote Starved for Science in order to explain, in Reason editor Kerry Howley's words, just why "cutting edge farming technology is most feared where it is most needed." Also available online is a talk Paarlberg gave recently at the International Food Policy Research Institute, which works to find "sustainable solutions for ending hunger and poverty."

Janet Hope on open-source biotechnology

Check out a Q&A with Janet Hope, author of Biobazaar: The Open Source Revolution and Biotechnology, featured in this week's Technica newsletter from Powells.com.

Seeds of revolution?

A new article in Technology Review profiles Norman Borlaug, "green revolutionary" and co-author, with former US President Jimmy Carter, of the Foreword to Robert Paarlberg's Starved for Science: How Biotechnology Is Being Kept Out of Africa, which details how poor African farmers are denied access to productive technologies by Western government's and NGOs intent on keeping the GMO bogeyman out of the hands of the people who might need it most. Starved for Science will be out in March 2008, but this subject isn't going anywhere, as this recent Des Moines Register article quoting Dr. Paarlberg indicates.

Ken Wark--"The Karl Marx of the 21st Century"

Or so says leading French paper Le Monde in its recent profile of "hacker guru" Ken Wark--"Certains voient en lui 'le Karl Marx du XXIe siècle.' Heady stuff indeed. Wark's Gamer Theory is out now from HUP.

On Nuclear Terrorism--just read it already!

Or so says the editorial board at the Los Angles Times, in their "We wish ..." article for 2008:

We wish ... That the current and incoming national security advisor and secretaries of State, Defense and Homeland Security read Michael Levi's "On Nuclear Terrorism" and make it a top priority to ensure that everything that can be done to foil a nuclear attack by terrorists is being done.

We here at HUP wish exactly the same thing!

Happy New Year, everyone.

Simple steps to stop nuclear terrorism

Following up on last week's post about the Slovakian uranium story, Council on Foreign Relations Fellow and On Nuclear Terrorism author Michael Levi has an op-ed in today's Washington Times encouraging us to get our heads out of the clouds (literally, in the case of the "Star Wars" nuclear defense system) and take simple, concrete steps--"mundane approaches" like training for police and border patrols--that in his estimation actually have a better chance of success than flashy gadgets:

These experiences suggest a different approach to embedding nuclear detection into a broader counterterrorism scheme. A smart strategy would put people at its core while equipping them with tools to enhance their effectiveness on nuclear plots. Instead of focusing mainly on exotic systems that would scan everything that moves through ports, it would emphasize at least as much providing customs officials basic tools to investigate those vehicles whose drivers behave peculiarly. Rather than try to blanket vast stretches of remote border with long-range radiation sensors, such a strategy could give Border Patrol officers simple and robust instruments they could use to examine individuals caught by traditional means.

Also, don't miss the discussion of Levi's book this week over at TPM Book Club. In Levi's first post, he delivers a witty synopsis of why he wrote On Nuclear Terrorism:

To understand how to confront nuclear terrorism, we need to get inside as many nuclear plots as we can. There's only one catch: no real-world terrorist attempt at a nuclear attack has ever gotten very far. Without reality to anchor us, we tend to conjure fantastic terrorist schemes, obsess over worst-case scenarios, and demand perfect defenses. That distorts our thinking about how to defend against nuclear terrorism. My book is a guide to kicking that habit.

On Nuclear Terrorism is available now from HUP.

Michael Levi radio interviews

As a follow-up to our previous post, here are three radio interviews with Michael Levi, author of On Nuclear Terrorism:

• KUOW--Seattle Public Radio -- "Today we go inside the lives and minds of terrorist leaders with Michael Levi of the Council on Foreign Relations. We'll look at the decisions they face and the obstacles that stand in their way. Could the US Defense Department be bolstered by understanding the terrorist point of view? What scenarios are they already planning for?"

• KQED Forum -- "The show talks with Michael Levi, author of "On Nuclear Terrorism" and fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations."

• KPBS Radio--San Diego NPR -- "...But what are the chances that a terrorist would be able to cross a border with a nuke in his backpack? In fact, some people question whether Iran, itself, really has the capability to develop nuclear weapons anytime soon. We're going to spend a little time talking about proliferation and ask what we should reasonably worry about."

Also you can hear Levi's remarks at the Council on Foreign Relations, where he is a fellow, from November 20, 2007, or check out a YouTube episode of "Conversations with History" for additional discussion.. Enjoy!

Nuclear material seized in Slovakia

All over the news yesterday--a gang arrested by police in Slovakia had been peddling uranium enriched enough to be used in a "dirty bomb."

From the Times:

A gang arrested by Slovakian police was trafficking uranium so enriched that it could have been used by terrorists in a dirty bomb, it emerged today.

Two Hungarians and a Ukrainian man were arrested as they tried to sell the uranium last night. The consignment had been tracked by police after it came to their attention inside the former Soviet Union.

A total of 481.4 grams of uranium was found and investigators believe it contained 98.6 per cent uranium-235. Uranium is considered weapons-grade if it contains at least 85 per cent uranium-235.

Out this month is Michael Levi's On Nuclear Terrorism, a book that seeks to guide our response to exactly the sort of threats represented in this and countless other news stories (and books, and television shows, and video games). Levi ultimately sees the nuclear threat as not fundamentally different than other terrorist threats, cautioning us not to focus solely on the most harrowing threats. In this Wired article Levi sets out various strategies we could employ to keep track of loose nuclear material--they are not all glamorous, but according to Levi, what we need is not glamor but reason and common sense. Only once we've got our entire counterterrorism and homeland security house in order can we know that we've done everything we can to prevent the next nuclear threat, and while there will always be surprises, better to meet them head-on than to be thrown off-guard.

Smart people discuss video games--tonight!

New Yorkers take note--McKenzie Wark, author of Gamer Theory, will take part in a panel discussion on video games tonight at 6pm. The event is at Eyebeam--540 W. 21st Street (between 10th & 11th Avenues)--and admission is free. The panel is moderated by New York Times Magazine writer Clive Thompson. Folks, this is "hip" and "smart" at its hippest and smartest, so don't be late.

More Gamer Theory

McKenzie Wark's Gamer Theory gains momentum with this latest review appearing in The Brooklyn Rail:

This is only a book about video games in the way that the story of Noah’s Ark is about the weather. For Wark, the game exists as an allegory, informing and illuminating the more dystopic elements of our reality, the world-as-gamespace. Now that the video game is the dominant cultural symbol of our times (played regularly by 60% of Americans), play itself has ceased to be a form of liberation or escape.

In other GT news, the Institute for the Future of the Book has put up several new "visualizations" (i.e. graphical representations) of Gamer Theory, in hopes that viewing the text in different ways will allow us to discover new patterns and meanings. Some of them will really wow you...