Genes from the Wild: Using Wild Genetic Resources for Food and Raw Materials (Natural Resource Management Set) - Hardcover

Prescott-Allen, Robert; Prescott-Allen, Christine

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1849710120 ISBN 13: 9781849710121

Publisher: Routledge, 2009

Synopsis

Tomatoes could not be grown commercially without the help of their wild relatives. A single wild species of rice has helped double rice production in Asia. Wild silk-worms are enabling India to expand its silk industry. A wild carp with resistance to cold has been used to extend Soviet carp production further into the north.

Wild genetic resources - the heritable characteristics of wild plants and animals - are used increasingly to improve domesticated crops and livestock and as new sources of food and of raw materials. But habitat destruction, over-exploitation and competition from introduced species is destroying many gene pools even before they have been identified.

Genes from the Wild describes the growing contribution of wild genetic resources to the production of food and raw materials, describes their characteristics, explains the benefits and problems of using them and outlines the ways in which they are threatened and the measures being taken to conserve them.

Originally published in 1988

About this title

About the Author

Authored by Prescott-Allen, Robert ; Prescott-Allen, Christine

Edition details

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1849710120
• ISBN 13: 9781849710121
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 116