Crop Chemophobia

The Green Revolution of 1960s introduced herbicides pesticides and advanced agricultural technologies to third world countries-rescuing hundreds of millions of people from malnutrition and starvation and transforming low-yield labor-intensive farming into the high-tech immensely productive industry it is today. Despite these stunning gains critics of chemical farming remain vocal. Recently the European Union passed a ban on twenty-two chemicals-about 15 percent of the EU pesticides market-to begin in 2011. In Crop Chemophobia Jon Entine and his coauthors examine the precautionary principle that underlies the EU's decision and explore the ban's potential consequences-including environmental degradation decreased food safety impaired disease-control efforts and a hungrier world.