The Viking in the Wheat Field: A Scientist's Struggle to Preserve the World's Harvest |  | Author: Susan Dworkin
Publisher: Walker & Company
Category: Book
List Price: $26.00
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Rating:  4 reviews
Sales Rank: 223,185
Media: Hardcover
Edition: First American Edition (stated)
Pages: 256
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6.3 x 1.1
ISBN: 0802717403
Dewey Decimal Number: 333.953416
EAN: 9780802717405
ASIN: 0802717403
Publication Date: November 24, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
The gripping story of how Bent Skovmand and others preserved the worldâs wheat harvest. In 1999, a terrifying new form of stem rustâspotted in Uganda and dubbed âUG99ââquickly turned robust golden fields into dark, tangled ruins. For decades plant scientists had bred wheat varieties with rust-resistant genes, but these genes did not work against UG99. Unchecked, UG99 could spread all over the world, including the United States. Breeders everywhere began searching wheat germplasm collections for sources of resistance. The largest collection was at the Center for Improvement of Maize and Wheat (CIMMYT ) in Mexico, developed by the brilliant Danish scientist Bent Skovmand. For three decades, Skovmand amassed, multiplied, and documented thousands of wheat varieties. He served as an advisor on wheat genetic resources to dozens of countries, and hunted for seeds that would contain the genes to protect the harvest from plagues like UG99 and the stresses created by global warming. I n an era when corporations and governments often jealously guarded breeding information, Skovmand fought to keep his seed bank a center for free, open scientific exchange. By telling the story of Skovmandâs work and that of his colleagues, The Viking in the Wheat Field sheds a welcome light on an agricultural sectorââplant genetic resourcesââon which we are all crucially dependent.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Rated for content - excellent... for kindle version - ehhhh March 12, 2010
P. Mikell (NY USA)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
This is a fascinating and well written book, but the kindle version has so many typos that reading it can sometimes become a chore as the reader has to break stride to figure out what things like "Rock ef eller" means. Proper names are repeatedly hyphenated and then in different places. Rockefeller is one example; another is Damania which comes up Da-mania, Dama-nia, Damani-a.... There are seemingly hundreds of acronyms and I quickly lost comprehension of them. One random page makes use of CIMMYT, IRRI, CG, ICARDA.
The biggest problem, however, seems to me to be the sloppiness with which the kindle edition is done. It clearly hasn't been proof read by a native English speaking proof reader. Amazon needs to get on top of this with the kindle editions.
An Important Book March 3, 2010
M. A. R. Bewick (Hingham MA USA)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Doomsday vaults in Norway, wheat rust that threatens the food supply of Asia, mismanagement of global food stock seed banks.....Susan Dworkin has written a compelling science-based must-read for anyone around the world who is is interested in knowing who decides what we eat, how food stock decisions are made, and how to feed the world where we find ever-increasing hunger, in a time that climate change has brought drought to critical food-growing areas of Australia and Africa. "The Viking in the Wheat Field" introduces a fascinating cast of characters from many countries engaged in the global food drama, including a Nobel prize winner, and the Gates Foundation, with a particular focus on one man's story, who dedicated his life to protecting the seeds.
Susan Dworkin has moved over the years from fiction, plays, biography and novel writing back to agricultural policy, having first started her career as a staff member in the Department of Agriculture during the Kennedy era. Her focus on seed science is leavened by a compelling story. I found this is an important book and read it twice: once for an orientation to a world of germplasm politics and scenarios, and then again for the narrative. I was not aware of what was at stake until I was introduced to the field through Dworkin's work.
 The Fragile Food Supply and Sir Bent January 29, 2010
Martin Fealk (Huntington Woods, MI)
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
Most of us think of the Irish potato famine as a plague of a bygone era, or as a result just of horrid and treacherous 19th century British imperial policy. Yet the biological element, a plant disease, looms closer than we might think.
Susan Dworkin's The Viking in The Wheat Field tells the story of a small core of dedicated plant scientists who breed and preserve grain seeds adapted to resist crop-devastating disease, to thrive in hostile growing conditions and to increase bounty to levels only dreamt of before the 20th century.
The focus for presenting the story is a charismatic Dane, Bent Skovand, a plant scientist passionately dedicated to feeding the hungry -- not in soup kitchens and shelters -- but by working to ensure abundant grain harvests worldwide.
I had never before known of the fragility of our grain harvests to disease and climate. As I read I wanted to follow Bent's life. In doing do I was carried through the lessons of grain breeding and preservation, including the trips to the world's most remote places such as the Himalayas and beyond the Arctic Circle to gather and preserve rare local grains and chart their properties. The book has a few technical parts, but just enough to allow the reader to be carried knowledgeably through the story.
Understanding the fragility of the world's grain crops sensitizes one to the importance of environmental preservation. Other hot topics covered include food irradiation and the legal policy of granting patents for life forms (seeds). Might such patents give private multi-national corporations power to influence or control food production? After having gouged our bank accounts will they now "take the food off our plates?"
For others like me, uninitiated in the subject, this book is a real eye opener, one that taught me to be sensitive to an aspect of the world I took for granted -- that abundant food is always readily available. I suspect that is how most see it.
For me The Viking in the Wheat Field was a learning experience in an area to which I had previously given little and but casual thought. So I enthusiatically recommend the highly readible story of grain and of Bent Skovand, a man who spent years in grain fields, gathering and building the world's grain knowledge and breeding new varieties. He fought the bureaucrats, adapted to the politicians, but always with the goal of eliminating hunger. He was knighted for his work by the Queen of Denmark. He died too young. So, Good night, Sir Bent, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!
Food for thought December 18, 2009
Lucky Boy (Woodland, CA)
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
Often it is not the politicians or the heads of governments who control the destiny of millions. Scientists work diligently in a corner without any fanfare or brouhaha. And more often than not, they make a big difference to the quality of life of the resource depleted nations. The Viking in the Wheat Field is a story of one such individual to tried hard to make a difference and nearly succeeded. The book is a must read for all wheat scientists and plant explorers and gives useful information about the environment in which the green revolution wheats were created.
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