Biotechnology in Development: Experiences from the South

The past few decades have seen an impassioned scientific and social debate on the pro and cons of biotechnology. This book questions the primacy of this pro/anti debate and points out the possibility of going beyond it to a 'third way': tailor-made biotechnology. The book describes the emergence of new power relations within global food chains. However, power is not only seen as a system of dominance, but also as a force driving the development of change strategies. Therefore, technologies are not seen as a fate (to be accepted or rejected), but as a challenge to political creativity. The book also contains a DVD with four documentaries in which concrete efforts of civil society organizations are filmed to re-invent biotechnology. In different contexts such as farmers' fields schools in India, urban agriculture in Cuba, participatory plant-breeding in Ecuador and food networks in Ghana, it is shown how biotechnology is re-made from a social perspective. This pro-poor and empowering biotechnology may be an alternative for the exploiting and industrial biotechnology of multinational corporations.