The book is a case study of a complex and ambitious project for the development and biosafety testing of Bt maize in Kenya. The basic idea was to develop testing facilities and methods for GM crops, adapted to a developing country, to reduce pest losses in maize. The topic of the book is interesting and pertinent, given the growing concerns for food security in Africa.

The book, structured by annual reports of progress, is written by an involved but independent journalist with reasonable knowledge of the science and politics, using ‘participatory observation’. His aim was to give an example of ‘an outstanding example of development policy from which lessons can be learnt’. I expected to be quickly interested in the book; unfortunately this wasn't the case. The author spends too much time describing and re-describing in great detail the rather tedious local procedures for running meetings, flawed decision-making processes and local politics rather than discussing scientific experiences and lessons. Too much attention is also given to describing local personalities involved in running the project, rather than key lessons that were learnt at each stage over the 10-year project.

The most interesting chapter entitled ‘An Exemplary Project and its Lessons’ is certainly useful. However, it quickly concludes that the project was unsuccessful and finally had to be terminated for political, financial and scientific reasons. This leaves the reader wondering what exactly was exemplary about the project. The lessons are there to be extracted, but these need to be highlighted more clearly for the general reader.