Food for Africa

She has addressed the world's leaders at the UN. She has sat in the hot seat at the World Economic Forum in Davos persuading economists that genetically modified food is the answer to food security in Africa. She has faced vitriolic activists on television and explained the facts and fallacies of genetic engineering.

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An advisor to world leaders and economists on genetically modified food as the answer to food security in Africa, Jennifer Thomson traces through anecdote and science the development of a hotly contended area of research, from the dawn of genetic engineering in the USA in 1974, through the early stages of its uptake in South Africa to the current situation in which approximately 80% of maize in South Africa is genetically modified for drought resistance. Through her own story of how she came to choose GM as a career and her path-breaking involvement in the development of GM research, she describes the spread of this technology into other parts of Africa and her venture into unknown territory to develop crops resistant to drought, insects and viruses, and looks to a future in which staple crops may be grown in difficult conditions by smallholder farmers and help Africans achieve food security.