Environment and Food

Although written as a textbook, this is a highly accessible and comprehensive account of the relationship between environment and food, both now and potentially in the future. The overall agenda has to be the creation of a sustainable food system, which the current agri-industry model is certainly not, especially when tied in with the global food industry and its pursuit of profit at the expense of the health of their customers. The very act of eating engages us in the global food system by our choices. The book explains the structure of the global agri-food system including technology, manufacturing and food retail. It then points out the value of ecosystem services in relation to the types of agricultural systems. Among the global challenges to food production our climate change, water scarcity, peak oil and the impact of livestock production.

We need to rethink food security, where the starting point is that over 920 million people do not have enough to eat, while, at the other end of the scale, there are in fact more obese people than there are starving. Continued population growth and high energy costs will have an impact on food security, as will globalisation. In my view, it is essential that producers receive a fair return for their products, especially in view of the fact that farm receipts have declined sharply due to the power of multinational corporations. For instance, the internationally traded price of tea fell to 47% of its 1980 value by 2002, cotton to 21%, cocoa to 19% and coffee to just 14%. In many countries it is difficult to diversify into other commodities and, paradoxically, increasing production simply drives down prices further. As an indicator of future trends, the reinsurance group Munich Re itemised 960 major natural disasters in 2007, with 90% being the result of extreme weather-related or climate-related events and resulting in over $60 billion of economic losses. This book is an essential briefing for the future.