The wheat in bread, the potatoes in chips, and the corn in breakfast cereal are all the results of many years interbreeding different varieties of plants. But some characteristics useful to growers, such as pest resistance, still elude the efforts of the plant breeders. Now genetic engineering offers a time-saving method of overcoming the limitations of traditional plant-breeding.
Colin Tudge explores the prospects that, in the future, man-made plants will be the source of our daily bread.
Producer DEBORAH COHEN long wave only