Plant breeders' rights herald a new world of improved varieties

New technology to create improved varieties is being developed at warp speed. Keep up with it, but take care not to run foul of the laws that protect it

- Peter Hughes.

It took Homo sapiens between 2000 and 3 000 years to realise that there were easier ways of feeding themselves and their families than hunting other animals and gathering seeds and roots.

The earliest signs of agriculture emerged some 10 000 years ago, and there is evidence of the first crude farming tools and technology, like wooden ploughs and basin irrigation, in use around 4 000 years ago. It took a further 3 500 years for bronze to start replacing stone. Innovation and technology moved slowly in those days! It was only in the 15th and 16th centuries AD that the thinking of people like Galileo, Isaac Newton and Johannes Kepler began to lay the foundations for modern science and technology.

This was the start of the Scientific Revolution, heralding the invention of the telescope and microscope and the formulation of the laws of gravity.

From there, the pace of technology accelerated, but it still took another 100 years for coal to be discovered and the steam engine, metal forging, spinning machines, and looms to be invented.

The Industrial Revolution had begun.

The moment of lift-off came between 1870 and 1914 with the discovery and development of electricity, leading to the steel and chemical industries, along with massive advances in transportation and communication.