ABSTRACT
We approach the questions through Simmonds’s outstanding guide to the logic of plant breeding, seen as ‘the continuation of crop evolution’, i.e. of natural selection combined with farmers’ choices, ‘by other means’ [Simmonds, 1981, page v]. It might seem odd to pick a book on the breeding of plants in order to understand the goals and options in the improvement of food crops. Better varieties of crops are generated to specifications requiring many disciplines other than plant breeding. Plant pathologists define the biochemistry of diseases attacking the plant, and of its resistance to them; plant physiologists assess the prospects of developing different dimensions in roots, leaves and stalks, and the results for plant performance; agronomists examine the impact of alternative farming practices, timings, and systems on plant growth and yield; and so on. Moreover, food crops-while highly disparate-differ systematically from other crops in ways critically relevant to the poor, especially because only food crops are, in many places, grown mainly for the use of their growers rather than for sale.
