Product Description

A look back to the days of farming in England when people shared and swapped food and considered the wildlife as well as the penned animals and grown crops and fruits. John Humphrys examines today's travesties of factory farming, and pouring chemicals into the land.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #665923 in Books
• Published on: 2001-04-12
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 317 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
John Humphrys, broadcaster, writer, farmer and consumer, has written The Great Food Gamble to address the serious questions he and many of his audience have about the food on our tables in the wake of BSE, foot and mouth, and concerns about the effects of factory farming practices on the nation's health and environment. Humphrys knowledgeably traces such intensive agricultural practices to British food policy from the end of the Second World War to ask whether the relentless drive for more and more food has been a mistake and whether the risks we run are worth it to have what may ultimately prove to be an illusion of choice. Are there really no alternatives, he asks? As readers of Devil's Advocate and listeners to Radio 4's Today programme will no doubt expect, Humphrys has a no-nonsense approach. He has little time or patience with mealy-mouthed politicking. Industrial practices, backed up by political will, is costing our health and our environment too dear, he argues. He counts the cost of intensive factory farming, not only in terms of the destruction of our rural heritage, long-term environmental effects and mounting health concerns about the use of antibiotics and pesticides, but the hard cash cost of subsidies and cleaning up pollution that put the lie to the food industry's claim of providing "cheap" food. Humphrys adds his voice to the great food industry debate along with George Monbiot's critique of the supermarket's control of food production in Captive State and Eric Schlosser's stomach-churning analysis of our unfortunate infatuation with fast food in Fast Food Nation. Humphrys' prose is unashamedly popular: evocative and even nostalgic for a fast disappearing experience of the British countryside, even as he stops short of being romantic. If this means that he substitutes rhetoric for detail, he remains bang on target and knows that to engage people in this debate and connect it effectively to their lives is the most effective way to counter the enormous power wielded by the other side. A bitter harvest indeed. --Fiona Buckland

Review
In between presenting Radio 4's Today programme, reading the Nine O'Clock News and going abroad in a variety of other BBC posts, Humphrys has managed to own a dairy farm for 10 years. Having challenged the nation's social and moral values in Devil's Advocate, his 1999 debut book, the state of the nation's food must have seemed the next logical subject. Although the text is embargoed, Hodder cheerfully predicts he will cause a storm with his controversial views on factory farming, constant use of pesticides, creation of superbugs and genetically modified food. He is part of the organic school, with consideration for wildlife, community values and proposing the reversal of damage to the land and our health through what we eat.

Review
'Thought-provoking, well-researched' (Fordyce Maxwell, Scotsman )

'Compelling' (Observer )

'Incisive and readable' (Mick Hume, The Times )

'Humphrys's level-headedness makes the arguments all the more powerful' (Paul Heiney, The Sunday Times )

'This could be the best diet book ever written' (The Sunday Times )

'Without being sentimental, it is a passionate discourse... well-written and accessible. My only concern is that its message is likely to be ignored where it matters most.' (Tim Lang, Independent )

Customer Reviews

Well argued, shame about the polemics
There have been plenty of issues that make people concerned over food in the last few years - Salmonella in eggs, BSE in cattle and the introduction of GM foods. John Humphrys gives a brief overview of how farming has changed since the Second World War from a small scale, largely family run business to a (mostly) intensive factory business, and how this has led to our food being increasingly adulterated with fertilisers, pesticides, hormones and anti-biotics.

Now while there is plenty to get worried about in all this, and John Humphrys does present the risks well, I would have found it a lot more convincing if he hadn't given the impression that he'd really prefer it if farmers were non profit making, horny handed sons of the soil and that any sniff of profit should be ruthlessly eliminated. In this book, there are clear "goodies" and "baddies" - the goodies being the small organic farmers, the "baddies" being the EU, large pharmaceutical companies, supermarkets and the "barley barons" (a group he neither defines nor interviews).

Now there is plenty of well argued science in here. The Chapter on the history of pesticides, and how new pesticides have been introduced as their predecessors have been banned, is enough to make anyone worry and the description of how the increasing monoculture throughout Britain's arable land is allowing the spread of crop diseases (which leads, in turn, to more spraying) is well argued, as is the Chapter on GM, which is surprisingly neutral (if erring on the side of scepticism) on the subject.

Overall a good guide to the farming is practiced throughout Britain today, and if you don't mind the polemics against big business (agricultural, pharmaceutical or retail) it presents a coherent arguement about the quality of our food.

One of the most important books written in the last 10 years
If you don't read any other book about the food industry, read this one! What John Humphrys has tried to do is assimilate into one very readable (indeed, unputdownable) book the research produced by many, many different people, ranging from eminent scientists across the world, to journalists, farmers and others involved in the food industry. He is careful to show precisely where research is inconclusive, and where there is more than one side to the arguments, and he concentrates as much on the impact of Government ministries and the large biotech and food manufacturing companies as he does on farming itself. This is not just a one-sided 'slagging-off' of farmers but a very fair appraisal of what has happened in the last 50 years and what might happen in the next 50 years if nothing changes.

There are chapters on why farming moved into such an intensive phase in the first place (during and after the war when fears of food blockades and starvation were very real), on chicken farming, fish farming, the effects of current farming practices on the soil, antibiotics, genetic modification, and the impact of consumer choice on the rapid rise in interest in organic food. There are many pages of bibliographical references at the end for those who want to research further.

Buy this book, read it, and give it to your friends. It will open your eyes and give you 'food for thought' for many months to come.

excellent, good balance between fact and opinion
Clearly written from the heart.
Most of us by now are either extremely concerned about the food we are eating or wearing blinkers and earplugs to shut out the facts.
John Humphreys expands on our fears about the food we eat. If you would rather not know about the damage to yourself and your family and the environment by over use of pesticides, herbicides, hormones, anti-biotics, to name but a few, this book is not for you.