At a time when the world's food supplies are increasingly unable to meet the needs of a burgeoning population, there is significant diversity of opinion concerning the benefits and perceived dangers of the application of biotechnology to food production. Plants, Biotechnology and Agriculture provides the reader with a guide to plants as both organisms and resources. The first half of the book gives an overview of plant biology, suitable for students of plant biology and agriculture as well as those without a biology
background. This is followed by an outline of the human exploitation of plants, from domestication to scientific manipulation. Further chapters describe the technologies that are now being used to improve crops, society's responses to these technologies, and how they are being modified as a result. The book concludes with a discussion of future challenges for biotechnology in the face of rapid population growth, depletion of non-renewable resources and climate change.

Table of Contents:
PART I. PLANTS AND THEIR GENOMES 1. Plants and their exploitation by people 2. The evolution of photosynthetic organisms 3. Plant molecular genetics and genomics PART II. HOW PLANTS FUNCTION 4. Plant metabolism 5. Plant organisation and development 6. Plant responses to the environment PART III. HOW PLANTS ARE MANIPULATED 7. Domestication and the empirical exploitation of plants 8. The scientific manipulation of plants 9. Crop improvement in the 20th century PART IV. PLANTS, SOCIETY AND THE FUTURE 10. Plant biotechnologies in the 21st century 11. Social context of plant biotechnologies 12. Future challenges for plant biotechnology