News Release

September 25, 2002

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Bountiful Harvest: Technology, Food Safety, and the Environment
Book debunks the myths of "Frankenfood"

Arguing that pro-technology is pro-people, Thomas R. DeGregori, professor of economics at the University of Houston, turns a close eye on what he calls the "fads and phobias" of the anti-technology lobby, the fashionable environmentalists, and the green consumerists. In this provocative work, Prof. DeGregori explores many of the revolutionary technological advances of the past century, especially those in agriculture, like the development of bioengineered foods. He demonstrates that such technology has increased the average lifespan and improved our well-being.

For example, millions of lives have been saved from malaria and typhus -- two of the world's greatest killers -- by DDT, a chemical that anti-technology groups in the United States managed to get banned. Crop yields around the globe have increased greatly, and starvation and hunger have been dramatically reduced because of agricultural technology.

Bountiful Harvest is sure to spark debate about the role of technology in everyday lives.

Bountiful Harvest: Technology, Food Safety, and the Environment