Word: cassava
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...lone British researcher who claimed--somewhat dubiously--that g.m. potatoes damaged his lab rats. On the contrary, as scientists told the FDA, genetically modified foods could carry clear health benefits, such as delivering more nutrients, reducing spoilage and curtailing chemical contamination. Besides, natural doesn't always mean good: cassava, for example, can be toxic if not properly prepared...
...journalist, lost his job several months ago and cannot find a new one. The fees at his four-year-old son's religious school have risen from $23 to $114. The rent on the family's modest flat in Lagos has doubled to $36.50 a month. A bag of cassava flour that sold for $13.60 when the couple married in 1988 now goes for $50 or more. "Five years ago, I thought that by now we would have a fine home and two cars," says Dapo. "Now I wonder if I can ever have those things...
...hungry Third World that biotechnology offers the greatest hope. Washington University plant pathologist Roger Beachy is working on introducing genes for disease resistance into cassava, a critical food source for much of Africa. Scientists at the International Potato Center in Peru and the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines are applying the tools of genetic engineering to improve the major crops of South America and Asia. Before the middle of the next century, experts warn, world population may reach 10 billion, and agriculture had better keep up. By that time, the planet's crop and livestock growers will probably...
When a five-year civil war in the early 1980s drove farmers to abandon their land and livestock, swarms of once docile domestic pigs and their offspring returned to the wild, rooting up the earth in peasants' gardens and devouring cassava, sweet potato and groundnut crops. With their powerful sense of smell, vicious temperament and high birthrate -- sows can bear litters of up to 15 young four times a year -- the beasts are a formidable new enemy for local peasants. Moving mostly in darkness and traveling up to 20 miles a night, the wild pigs have cut local food production...