© 2012 Cardiff Scientific Society

Abstract

19 Oct   

              During the past decade we have made significant advances in understanding how the genetics of people and plants have interacted in a way that has shaped our modern world. After almost 200,000 years as hunter-gatherers, about 10,000 years ago people around the world suddenly became farmers.

People, Plants and Genes. The Story of Crops and Humanity

Professor Denis J. Murphy BSc Dphil

Professor of Biotechnology, University of Glamorgan

Within a few millennia they had domesticated almost all the crops and livestock species that we still rely on for our food today. In this talk I will examine the interaction of genomes and environment and its role in creating the farming based agro-urban culture that we live in today. I will also look towards the future and the challenges we face feeding a growing human population in an era of climate change that may be comparable to the one that helped usher in the farming revolution 10,000 years ago.