The fate of food : what we'll eat in a bigger, hotter, smarter world

Format:

Book

Title:

The fate of food : what we'll eat in a bigger, hotter, smarter world

Author:

Little, Amanda, 1974- author

ISBN:

9780804189033

9780804189040

Edition:

First edition.

Publication:

New York : Harmony Books, [2019]

Physical Description:

340 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

Contents:

Introduction -- A taste of things to come -- Killing fields -- Seeds of drought -- Robocrop -- Sensor sensibility -- Altitude adjustment -- Tipping the scales -- Meat hooked -- Stop the rot -- Pipe dreams -- Desperate measures -- Antiquity now -- What rough feast -- Epilogue: Growing up.

Summary:

Climate models show that global crop production will decline every decade for the rest of this century due to drought, heat, and flooding. Water supplies are in jeopardy. Meanwhile, the world's population is expected to grow another 30 percent by midcentury. So how, really, will we feed nine billion people sustainably in the coming decades? Journalist Amanda Little spent three years traveling through a dozen countries and as many U.S. states in search of answers to this question. Her journey took her from an apple orchard in Wisconsin to a remote control organic farm in Shanghai, from Norwegian fish farms to famine-stricken regions of Ethiopia. Through her interviews and adventures with farmers, scientists, activists, and engineers, Little tells the story of human innovation and explores approaches both new and old to food production while charting the growth of a movement that could redefine sustainable food on a grand scale. She meets small permaculture farmers and "Big Food" executives, botanists studying ancient superfoods and Kenyan farmers growing the country's first GMO corn. She travels to places that might seem irrelevant to the future of food yet surprisingly play a critical role: a California sewage plant, a U.S. Army research lab, even the inside of a monsoon cloud above Mumbai. Little asks tough questions: Can GMOs actually be good for the environment and for us? Are we facing the end of animal meat? What will it take to eliminate harmful chemicals from farming? How can a clean, climate-resilient food supply become accessible to all?

Subject(s):

Food supply -- Environmental aspects.

Food security.

Sustainable agriculture.

Genre:

Informational works

Informational works.

Holds:

Available:*

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Summary

WINNER OF THE 2019 NAUTILUS BOOK AWARD

In the fascinating story of the sustainable food revolution, an environmental journalist and professor asks the question: Is the future of food looking bleak--or better than ever?

"In The Fate of Food, Amanda Little takes us on a tour of the future. The journey is scary, exciting, and, ultimately, encouraging."--Elizabeth Kolbert, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sixth Extinction

Climate models show that global crop production will decline every decade for the rest of this century due to drought, heat, and flooding. Water supplies are in jeopardy. Meanwhile, the world's population is expected to grow another 30 percent by midcentury. So how, really, will we feed nine billion people sustainably in the coming decades?

Amanda Little, a professor at Vanderbilt University and an award-winning journalist, spent three years traveling through a dozen countries and as many U.S. states in search of answers to this question. Her journey took her from an apple orchard in Wisconsin to a remote control organic farm in Shanghai, from Norwegian fish farms to famine-stricken regions of Ethiopia.

The race to reinvent the global food system is on, and the challenge is twofold: We must solve the existing problems of industrial agriculture while also preparing for the pressures ahead. Through her interviews and adventures with farmers, scientists, activists, and engineers, Little tells the fascinating story of human innovation and explores new and old approaches to food production while charting the growth of a movement that could redefine sustainable food on a grand scale. She meets small permaculture farmers and "Big Food" executives, botanists studying ancient superfoods and Kenyan farmers growing the country's first GMO corn. She travels to places that might seem irrelevant to the future of food yet surprisingly play a critical role--a California sewage plant, a U.S. Army research lab, even the inside of a monsoon cloud above Mumbai. Little asks tough questions: Can GMOs actually be good for the environment--and for us? Are we facing the end of animal meat? What will it take to eliminate harmful chemicals from farming? How can a clean, climate-resilient food supply become accessible to all?

Throughout her journey, Little finds and shares a deeper understanding of the threats of climate change and encounters a sense of awe and optimism about the lessons of our past and the scope of human ingenuity.

Author Notes

Amanda Little is a professor of journalism and Writer-in-Residence at Vanderbilt University. Her reporting on energy, technology, and the environment has taken her to ultra-deep oil rigs, down manholes, and inside monsoon clouds. Little's work has appeared in publications ranging from The New York Times and The Washington Post to Wired , Rolling Stone , and Bloomberg Businessweek . She writes, bikes, and is learning to cook and tango in Nashville, Tennessee, where she lives with her husband and kids.

Reviews (4)

Kirkus Review

A wide-ranging examination of approaches to food production that point the way to feeding the more crowded, hotter, and drier world of the future.Environmental journalist Little (Journalism and Writer-in-Residence/Vanderbilt Univ.; Power Trip: From Oil Wells to Solar CellsOur Ride to the Renewable Future, 2009) recounts her travels around the globe seeking out stories that illustrate problems and solutions related to food production and climate change. Among others, she had insightful discussions with farmers in Wisconsin, Mexico, China, and Kenya. In Norway, a salmon farmer introduced her to aquaculture, and in New Jersey, she learned the hows and whys of aeroponics, or vertical farming. An Israeli engineer demonstrated to the author that country's solutions to the water shortage, and she visited a California lab where cultured meat is being grown via cellular agriculture. Besides giving readers entertaining profiles of her interviewees, she shares her experiences in a lively, personable manner with just a few statistics and lots of pertinent quotes. She chronicles how she ate cultured meat and 3-D-printed food and drank specially treated water. Little, an open-minded author who has a knack for picking the brains of the right people, also looks at food waste, ancient crops with traits of climate resistance, cloud-seeding, and 3-D printing of military meals. The illustrations are rather sparse, small, and black-and-white, but one worth the price of admission reveals an "unsuccessful attempt to 3D-print hummus flatbread with an avocado star." As the author shows, true innovation takes patience and time. Little's take-home message is that innovation combined with good judgment can provide the solutions to the coming food crisis. She calls for a synthesis of the wisdom of the past with the ingenuity of the present to help us survive the future.An important, well-documented report that is highly readable, fact-filled, and eye-opening. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Booklist Review

This is an optimistic look at the future of the world's food supply, a subject that causes considerable angst when linked to climate change, rising sea temperatures, exploding population figures, clean water shortages . . . . Well, enough with the negatives. This take is positive and entertaining, as Little (Power Trip, 2009) documents her travels visiting farmers, botanists, and entrepreneurs: visionaries working to secure sustainable nourishment at the personal to international-conglomerate levels. The text is upbeat and peppered with wry observations (a blood-splattered chicken farmer looks like Katniss Everdeen crossed with a Jackson Pollock painting ), snippets from Robert Frost and Dr. Seuss, and personal critiques of engineered foods (one being Soylent, an adult baby formula available through Amazon). Some projects are still small scale, and most are still in the tinkering stage (robot crop harvesters; 3D-printed sandwiches), but the conclusion is that while food may someday look and taste a little different, science and ingenuity will keep it on our tables.--Kathleen McBroom Copyright 2019 Booklist

Choice Review

This well-written and engaging book critically examines techniques currently used or under development to address food security issues expected to arise from climate change and global population growth. The first two and the final chapters look at present-day food production challenges. Included is the author's discussion of the so-called Green Revolution and its effects on industrial farming. Readers meet a couple engaged in "permaculture" farming, which simultaneously exploits technology to increase production, while still embracing ecologically sound traditional practices. The second chapter describes an orchard farm where crop yields are threatened by higher winter temperatures. In subsequent chapters, Little (Vanderbilt Univ.) investigates a variety of possible approaches to future food production. Included are nuanced discussions of GM crops, especially those resisting climate change; robotics to remove unwanted weeds; vertical farming techniques; positive and negative aspects of fish farming; production of artificial meat; approaches to decrease supermarket food waste; and food produced through 3-D printing techniques. The final chapter returns to the interview with the farming couple, who discuss challenges and successes encountered in their work. Little thus situates the book within the context of serious food security issues requiring the coexistence of different approaches. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readers. --Martha E. Richmond, emerita, Suffolk University

Library Journal Review

There is no question that by the middle of the century how we grow and process our food will be vastly different from how we do it at present. Earth's population will be substantially larger, and our climate, given recent noticeable temperature changes, will be appreciably warmer. Seeking to examine how our world will react and deal with this oppressive reality is the focus of this timely work from Little (journalism, Vanderbilt Univ.), who researches what will have to be done to adapt in this new environment. The author's exploration of drought-tolerant super grains such as morgina and kernza seems to hold much promise, as do various efforts to desalinate water and the lengths taken by government entities and private companies to reduce food waste. While much of what Little discusses is cause for alarm, including the myopic use of water and the unbelievable amount of food wasted in affluent countries, she does give reasons for optimism. Humans, if nothing else, are able to overcome challenges by manipulating the world around us--especially in terms of our diets. VERDICT An informative, highly recommended read that touches on every relevant area of the subject and will have wide appeal.--Brian Renvall, Mesalands Community Coll., Tucumcari, NM