BOOKS
Can We Feed the World Without Destroying It?
by Eric Holt-Giménez (Polity, ISBN 9781509522019) politybooks.com
In this splendid primer on food politics, Eric Holt-Giménez, Executive Director of Food First, addresses the question posed in his title. Almost a third of humanity suffer from hunger or malnutrition and, on current projections, the world’s population is set to hit 10 billion by 2050. Thus, we are told, we have to double global food production by that date to feed our ever-growing numbers.
In robust, no-nonsense fashion the author takes issue with the pronouncements and assumptions of agri-business and politicians alike. He argues that the root problem is not of food – we already produce enough to feed that projected 10 billion – instead it lies in the wasteful, wrongheaded and ultimately planet-wrecking way we produce and consume our food. Pursuing the chimera of ‘enough food’ is a fool’s errand. Indeed, the drive to produce more, through industrial mono-cropping, gene modification and intensive use of fertilizers and pesticides is, in Holt-Giménez’s view, the approach that will result in global catastrophe. As he pithily says, ‘Overshoot of the earth’s human carrying capacity is driven by capitalism.’
