Product Description

The emergence of large-scale food production gave us unprecedented abundance - but at a steep and ultimately unsustainable price. Relentless cost-cutting has made our food systems vulnerable to contamination and disease. More than a billion people are overweight or obese, yet roughly the same number are still malnourished. Over-crowded countries like China are already planning for tightened global food supplies. As the world veers back to a time of hunger and uncertainty, Paul Roberts explores the vulnerable miracle of our modern food economy and pinpoints the decisions we must make to avoid the coming meltdown.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #95599 in Books
• Published on: 2009-04-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 432 pages

Review
'Indispensable ... the best analysis of the global food economy you are likely to find' Michael Pollan, author of In Defence of Food 'The coming food crisis ... is as intractable as global warming, and no less urgent' Economist 'What Roberts is telling us, essentially, is that our food is not cheap; it just seems to be cheap. One day we'll find out how expensive it really is. Or rather, was' William Leith, Evening Standard 'Other books have documented the growing food demands of the developing world ... What sets Roberts apart is how he pulls these topics together into a panorama of the food economy as a whole' Bloomberg.com

About the Author
Paul Roberts is the author of the acclaimed bestseller, The End of Oil and a regular contributor to Harper's Magazine. He lives in Washington State, US.

Customer Reviews

Investigating the failing global food machine
Journalist Paul Roberts investigated the global food-delivery system and he reports that food product production and prices have advanced like the production and prices of other contemporary consumer goods. The economics of the food system push an ever-faster product cycle driven by supply-and-demand pressures. The infrastructure that delivers food to consumers uses ever-advancing technology. However, food itself is not an ordinary consumer "product." Inexpensive food is an illusion, because the process externalizes many food production costs as cheap labor or cheap oil. Roberts explains why the food-delivery system is mired in economic, political and cultural problems, and examines the crisis that looms if it runs out of fuel or water, or both. getAbstract recommends this investigation to readers who want to understand the production, market and consumer implications involved in feeding the people on our planet.

Very readable
This is a very readable book. The pace and tone flows well and is rather like that of a TV documentary. This may not be everyone's cup of tea but appealing to those of us who enjoy that format. I'm not too far into the book but everything that Paul Roberts has stated is plain, simple and obvious. By that I mean that he has gathered facts together and predicted the future. I didn't know many of these facts, now I do, the possibilities for the future are obvious. This is a scary book.

Dull.
I've read a lot of books on the subject of food production, and this one didn't add much that I didn't already know. There's plenty of other books on this subject that are much more enjoyable and entertaining yet cover the same ground.