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Bet the Farm: How Food Stopped Being Food
A prominent food journalist follows the trail from Big Pizza to square tomatoes to exploding food prices to Wall Street, trying figure out why we can't all have healthy, delicious, affordable foodIn 2008, farmers grew enough to feed twice the world's population, yet more people starved than ever before—and most of them were farmers. In Bet the Farm, food writer Kaufman sets out to discover the connection between the global food system and why the food on our tables is getting less healthy and less delicious even as the the world's biggest food companies and food scientists say things are better than ever. To unravel this riddle, he moves down the supply chain like a detective solving a mystery, revealing a force at work that is larger than Monsanto, McDonalds or any of the other commonly cited culprits—and far more shocking.
Kaufman's recent cover story for Harper's, "The Food Bubble," provoked controversy throughout the food world, and led to appearances on the NBC Nightly News, MSNBC, Fox Business News, Democracy Now, and Bloomberg TV, along with features on National Public Radio and the BBC World Service.
Visits the front lines of the food supply system and food politics as Kaufman visits farms, food science research labs, agribusiness giants, the United Nations, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, and more
Explains how food has been financialized and the powerful consequences of this change, including: the Arab Spring, started over rising food prices; farmers being put out of business; food scientists rushing to make easy-to-transport, homogenized ingredients instead of delicious foods
Explains how the push for sustainability in food production is more likely to make everything worse, rather than better—and how the rise of fast food is bad for us, but catastrophic for those who will never even see a McNugget or frozen pizza
Kaufman's recent cover story for Harper's, "The Food Bubble," provoked controversy throughout the food world, and led to appearances on the NBC Nightly News, MSNBC, Fox Business News, Democracy Now, and Bloomberg TV, along with features on National Public Radio and the BBC World Service.
Visits the front lines of the food supply system and food politics as Kaufman visits farms, food science research labs, agribusiness giants, the United Nations, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, and more
Explains how food has been financialized and the powerful consequences of this change, including: the Arab Spring, started over rising food prices; farmers being put out of business; food scientists rushing to make easy-to-transport, homogenized ingredients instead of delicious foods
Explains how the push for sustainability in food production is more likely to make everything worse, rather than better—and how the rise of fast food is bad for us, but catastrophic for those who will never even see a McNugget or frozen pizza
272 pages, Hardcover
First published September 5, 2012
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 47 reviews
February 3, 2014
Reading this book was like casually wading in the warm shallow waters off a nice sandy beach with lots of colorful fish and shells underfoot, then stepping off the edge of an underwater cliff into dark cold water and being totally disoriented, floundering (so to speak) and trying to understand what just happened.
The first 13 chapters are somewhat superficial anecdotes about Domino's Pizza, Tyson Foods, Walmart,hunger around the world, NGO efforts to solve the hunger issue, a little on GMO issues, some points about industrialized farming, and a darkening motif of the monetization of food crops. Then in chapter 14 you fall off the cliff into the murky darkness of financial derivatives created from crop based financial transactions, all brought to you by the same bankers that brought you Collateralized Debt Obligations and Credit Default Swaps.
This is the section I struggled with and have to reread, but that shouldn't be a surprise because I am still confused by derivatives in general and Collateralized Debt Obligations and Credit Default Swaps specifically.
The conclusion is scary and points to continued hunger for millions of people around the world even with continued crop and food production that on a worldwide aggregate basis should be enough to feed everyone.
The first 13 chapters are somewhat superficial anecdotes about Domino's Pizza, Tyson Foods, Walmart,hunger around the world, NGO efforts to solve the hunger issue, a little on GMO issues, some points about industrialized farming, and a darkening motif of the monetization of food crops. Then in chapter 14 you fall off the cliff into the murky darkness of financial derivatives created from crop based financial transactions, all brought to you by the same bankers that brought you Collateralized Debt Obligations and Credit Default Swaps.
This is the section I struggled with and have to reread, but that shouldn't be a surprise because I am still confused by derivatives in general and Collateralized Debt Obligations and Credit Default Swaps specifically.
The conclusion is scary and points to continued hunger for millions of people around the world even with continued crop and food production that on a worldwide aggregate basis should be enough to feed everyone.
June 30, 2013
Many non-fiction books present complex and terrifying problems, such as the fact that in a time of record food production, over a billion people are going hungry. Most books then end with a proposed solution, or a cheery ray of hope for the future. This book does no such thing. The book outlines the sad fact that our entire system of food production has been hijacked by a complex high-finance system of commodity indexes, speculation and derivatives. The problem with such a system is that by making money off speculative food prices and futures (theoretical crops), the real-life poor suffer while the real-life rich prosper. The gap widens and because these "derivatives" are just numbers on a screen, no one knows or cares that they are having a direct impact on a family that can no longer feed itself due to a quadruple-price increase in the price of wheat.
Much like all of the economic mayhem of the last few years, the culprit is greed, pure and simple. But there's no pure and simple solution to that problem.
Why don't I read mindless fiction??
Much like all of the economic mayhem of the last few years, the culprit is greed, pure and simple. But there's no pure and simple solution to that problem.
Why don't I read mindless fiction??
December 20, 2014
The author sets out to answer a simple question: In this age of excess, where we produce more than 2000 calories per person on this planet, does everyone not have access to cheap, healthy food?
His answer leads down a rabbit hole that emerges to the big bad wolf of financial derivatives. Seems like nothing is too sacred to be sacrificed on the altar of profit.
"Food had been financialised. It had become a commodity, like gold, silver and oil. The higher the price, the better the investment. The better the investment, the more costly the food. And those who cannot pay, pay the price in hunger."
A factory farm needs constant inputs to produce constant outputs. Thus it squeezes out the small farmers, which are harder to standardise.
Food is not virtual. If we discuss food as a patent right, a spreadsheet, an index, or a percentage of market share, we are no longer talking about food. As a result more people than ever go hungry.
The point of the grain futures market was that by setting a price both buyer and seller could rely on and budget going forward, imaginary grain helped stabilise the price of real grain.
(On all the pledges of aid) The representative from Burkina Faso:"Promises have remained empty."
Without the farmer, there would definitely be no markets. For the farmer was the first speculator, and the farm the first portfolio.
To Lewis, the cost of a thing did not equal its value. Food possessed value, whereas people believe it was more important than the food. The system had been reversed.
Within the world of investment banks, traders possess a distinct personality type and worldview that can be summed up as follows:"Anything can be traded."
Like most commodity men, Hummel welcomed the apocalypse, which presents a "significant investment opportunity".
Traders in food commodities like to call their markets "free", but it is not. We must all participate, to the tune of 2000-3000 calories a day. To opt out is death.
The benefit of wheat is not cash. The benefit of wheat is bread, and the benefit of bread is life.
His answer leads down a rabbit hole that emerges to the big bad wolf of financial derivatives. Seems like nothing is too sacred to be sacrificed on the altar of profit.
"Food had been financialised. It had become a commodity, like gold, silver and oil. The higher the price, the better the investment. The better the investment, the more costly the food. And those who cannot pay, pay the price in hunger."
A factory farm needs constant inputs to produce constant outputs. Thus it squeezes out the small farmers, which are harder to standardise.
Food is not virtual. If we discuss food as a patent right, a spreadsheet, an index, or a percentage of market share, we are no longer talking about food. As a result more people than ever go hungry.
The point of the grain futures market was that by setting a price both buyer and seller could rely on and budget going forward, imaginary grain helped stabilise the price of real grain.
(On all the pledges of aid) The representative from Burkina Faso:"Promises have remained empty."
Without the farmer, there would definitely be no markets. For the farmer was the first speculator, and the farm the first portfolio.
To Lewis, the cost of a thing did not equal its value. Food possessed value, whereas people believe it was more important than the food. The system had been reversed.
Within the world of investment banks, traders possess a distinct personality type and worldview that can be summed up as follows:"Anything can be traded."
Like most commodity men, Hummel welcomed the apocalypse, which presents a "significant investment opportunity".
Traders in food commodities like to call their markets "free", but it is not. We must all participate, to the tune of 2000-3000 calories a day. To opt out is death.
The benefit of wheat is not cash. The benefit of wheat is bread, and the benefit of bread is life.
August 13, 2013
Though I felt this book was full of many good, solid facts presented in a way that I found interesting as a reader, I was disappointed in that no real solutions were offered for me to personally take. What good does it do to complain if one is not willing to make changes? The first few sections of the book seemed to be going in the right direction as the author began his exploration of what drives the cost of food, but then took a downward spiral as he began blaming it entirely on stocks and never again mentioned how we as consumers and inhabitants of this country and world can take steps to make even small but positive changes. If solutions had been offered, rather than just blame placed, I would have likely given this book 4 or 5 stars. Kudos to the author for his extensive research to the root issues and for putting these facts out in the open for all to see. I just fear that without offering solutions, he will lose far too many readers before they discover the root issues he uncovers.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 13, 2025
Thesis: We can't feed everyone cheaply right now because even though there is enough food to go around, important world players look at food as a source of revenue, pricing out small farms and driving up commodity prices by speculation in the futures market.
Note: this author somewhat casually mentions several farmer suicides in the first section of the book.
Smaller takeaways:
"I view what we're working on as widgets... I think being an employee at an exchange is different from adding value to the food system" (232). Similarly to previous experience in speaking with mathematicians who create predictive policing models, the consequences of the system you create cannot be left to the politicians or sociologists: It is also up to you as a creator of that system.
"More money did not mean better food for more people" (187), said during Frank's questioning of Bill Gates' Purchase for Progress program. Sometimes we inherently believe that throwing money at a system will improve it, or that the only solution is charity, but in this case, the underlying issues will be solved by neither.
Sheeran from the WFP: "Since money gad become the key to the hunger problem, the key to the hunger solution could be summed up in one word: markets... the WFP would guarantee a market where none now existed" (134). The program, Purchase for Progress (P4P), entailed the WFP committing to buy food from small scale farmers, while in parallel creating a country-wide commodity exchange so that small farmers could experience the same gains commodity traders do.
"Food is not like other commodities. No matter what the supply, demand remains the same" (138) discussing the price inelasticity of food using the example of the 1730 Osaka rice market, in which prices were fluctuating and people were going hungry until the government set a price for rice.
"Disease resistance, it turned out, did not have the same appeal for multinational food producers as it did for Ronald and UC-Davis, perhaps because Monsanto and Pioneer were already enjoying windfall profits from more lucrative agritech innovations, such as their roundup ready crops" (106). If new strains of food aren't clearly profitable (even if they are useful to the food market for consumers) they likely won't get produced.
"The global food game has become a property and information game" (106).
Sustainability metrics are difficult not because of a lack of data (although who owns the data once collected is polemic), the issue is how to *define* sustainability. If you measure farmers across different landscapes on the same questions (how much water do you use, etc.) is that fair to the farmers in dry landscapes where water usage is a huge deal vs wet landscapes where you can use water more freely? etc.
Have the limits of growth been reached? We see starvation everywhere, but also we have plenty of food. Frank thinks "the dispute comes down to the question of sustainability" (41). You have the "large scale agriculture is our only hope to feed the world" (41) view vs the "have farmers become ecosystem managers as well as producers" (43) pro small, local organic farms view.
"It was not the most gigantic food producers and distributors I should be trailing in my search for inexpensive, healthy, and delicious food for everyone, but the most efficient food producers -- and not just in terms of labour and output but in as complete and totalized as fashion as possible" (45).
Farms are wary of sharing their sustainability related information because it might give away their business practices (ex. how much fertilizer they use of what types, when).
Sustainability is hard to quantify, but industry is trying to do it, both because it could save them money and so that the government doesn't do it for them.
Large players like Walmart are investing a lot into this field, and looking at some key farms as examples.
Note: this author somewhat casually mentions several farmer suicides in the first section of the book.
Smaller takeaways:
"I view what we're working on as widgets... I think being an employee at an exchange is different from adding value to the food system" (232). Similarly to previous experience in speaking with mathematicians who create predictive policing models, the consequences of the system you create cannot be left to the politicians or sociologists: It is also up to you as a creator of that system.
"More money did not mean better food for more people" (187), said during Frank's questioning of Bill Gates' Purchase for Progress program. Sometimes we inherently believe that throwing money at a system will improve it, or that the only solution is charity, but in this case, the underlying issues will be solved by neither.
Sheeran from the WFP: "Since money gad become the key to the hunger problem, the key to the hunger solution could be summed up in one word: markets... the WFP would guarantee a market where none now existed" (134). The program, Purchase for Progress (P4P), entailed the WFP committing to buy food from small scale farmers, while in parallel creating a country-wide commodity exchange so that small farmers could experience the same gains commodity traders do.
"Food is not like other commodities. No matter what the supply, demand remains the same" (138) discussing the price inelasticity of food using the example of the 1730 Osaka rice market, in which prices were fluctuating and people were going hungry until the government set a price for rice.
"Disease resistance, it turned out, did not have the same appeal for multinational food producers as it did for Ronald and UC-Davis, perhaps because Monsanto and Pioneer were already enjoying windfall profits from more lucrative agritech innovations, such as their roundup ready crops" (106). If new strains of food aren't clearly profitable (even if they are useful to the food market for consumers) they likely won't get produced.
"The global food game has become a property and information game" (106).
Sustainability metrics are difficult not because of a lack of data (although who owns the data once collected is polemic), the issue is how to *define* sustainability. If you measure farmers across different landscapes on the same questions (how much water do you use, etc.) is that fair to the farmers in dry landscapes where water usage is a huge deal vs wet landscapes where you can use water more freely? etc.
Have the limits of growth been reached? We see starvation everywhere, but also we have plenty of food. Frank thinks "the dispute comes down to the question of sustainability" (41). You have the "large scale agriculture is our only hope to feed the world" (41) view vs the "have farmers become ecosystem managers as well as producers" (43) pro small, local organic farms view.
"It was not the most gigantic food producers and distributors I should be trailing in my search for inexpensive, healthy, and delicious food for everyone, but the most efficient food producers -- and not just in terms of labour and output but in as complete and totalized as fashion as possible" (45).
Farms are wary of sharing their sustainability related information because it might give away their business practices (ex. how much fertilizer they use of what types, when).
Sustainability is hard to quantify, but industry is trying to do it, both because it could save them money and so that the government doesn't do it for them.
Large players like Walmart are investing a lot into this field, and looking at some key farms as examples.
April 11, 2019
Insight into an issue I had never considered before. We make enough food for everyone in the world yet not everyone gets enough food. Food prices have been driven up over the last ten years by the entry of food into commodity markets, inviting speculators that never intend to buy food but drive the prices up. Yet another lesson on why unregulated money making is not a good thing.
July 31, 2022
So, I was thinking about this book the other day when I went grocery shopping at Trader Joe's. For some reason, I thought shopping there was "better" than shopping in the regular chain stores, but then I picked up a package of peaches and read the label that described them as being "coated in food-grade petroleum wax." I put those down and looked over at the apples that were also coated in wax and were shipped here from Argentina. Everything that "Bet the Farm" said was right: our food system is f*cked (my words, not the author's).
I enjoyed reading this book, for it got into the nitty-gritty of the global food market. In the end, it all boiled down to one single thing: money. "Money" is the answer to everything, and this book did a superb job following the money backward. It was a worthwhile read, and I will never look at "food" the same again.
I enjoyed reading this book, for it got into the nitty-gritty of the global food market. In the end, it all boiled down to one single thing: money. "Money" is the answer to everything, and this book did a superb job following the money backward. It was a worthwhile read, and I will never look at "food" the same again.
July 5, 2021
The book started wonderfully but then went from the specific into all over the place and the abstract. I couldn't keep engaged with it so I stopped reading it. The premise of the book and the question it seeks to answer is highly appreciated but the approach veered from how it started. Food indeed started to look, taste and be not food and it is scary and a rabbit hole yes, no doubt. I guess the book succeeds in showing that by being an example.
March 3, 2024
Seems like a long-drawn out argument to reach the abundantly clear conclusion that food is not accessible due to profit emphasis and market manipulation. Not sure why this wasn’t clear to the author at first. (This book was written in 2012, was there less class-consciousness then? Idk?) However, the market explanations were insightful, as I am someone who is not super well-versed in economics.
May 27, 2017
this is a solid journalistic look into the food industry. While it may not have some of the entertainment merits other books in this genre have it is worth sticking with for the varied way he approaches central issues.
April 7, 2018
Lots of info I’m not familiar with in terms of commodity trading, But given my interest in world hunger, a fascinating read. Great journalism. Makes me want to learn more about commodities and trading and how it determines world food prices.
September 30, 2017
I am lost at the financial part, although that is what I hoped to learn about when I picked up this book.
May 7, 2018
Very informative!
March 22, 2025
Excellently researched. Very in-depth. Need solid foundation in finance and stocks to fully understand it.
Read
January 15, 2026A lot of economics in this one
December 10, 2013
Eye-opening, in a very disturbing way -- like Rachel Maddow's "Drift." Food translated into imaginary money .... Meanwhile, even more people are starving to death.
And solutions that could make things worse.
Scared, disturbed and not sure how to help globally.
I did join a local produce delivery service during the reading of this book, which I hope helps locally.
Page 249-250:
"...[A]cademic ambiguities provide a particularly dissatisfying conclusion to the tale of a billion hungry people on Earth, particularly when there are steps we can take to avert another global good crisis. A national grain reserve is first. An international grain reserve is second. Then come the regulations and reforms.
"As of today, bankers an traders sit at the top of the international food chain -- the carnivores of the system, devouring everyone and everything below. Near the bottom toil the farmers. For them, the rising price of grain should have been a windfall, but speculation has also created spikes in everything the farmers must buy to grow their grain....At the very bottom of the good chain lie the consumers....[F]or the roughly two billion people across the world who spend more than 50 percent of their income on food, the effects are staggering.
"Fortunately, there is a straightforward soliton to the food derivative problem: revoke the position-limit exemptions that are handed out to a few select banks by the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission and enforce position limits for all the other banks, no matter where their home base. The index funds and all their relatives would disappear overnight if a bank could hold no more than five thousand futures contracts, as was the case until the year 2000."
And solutions that could make things worse.
Scared, disturbed and not sure how to help globally.
I did join a local produce delivery service during the reading of this book, which I hope helps locally.
Page 249-250:
"...[A]cademic ambiguities provide a particularly dissatisfying conclusion to the tale of a billion hungry people on Earth, particularly when there are steps we can take to avert another global good crisis. A national grain reserve is first. An international grain reserve is second. Then come the regulations and reforms.
"As of today, bankers an traders sit at the top of the international food chain -- the carnivores of the system, devouring everyone and everything below. Near the bottom toil the farmers. For them, the rising price of grain should have been a windfall, but speculation has also created spikes in everything the farmers must buy to grow their grain....At the very bottom of the good chain lie the consumers....[F]or the roughly two billion people across the world who spend more than 50 percent of their income on food, the effects are staggering.
"Fortunately, there is a straightforward soliton to the food derivative problem: revoke the position-limit exemptions that are handed out to a few select banks by the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission and enforce position limits for all the other banks, no matter where their home base. The index funds and all their relatives would disappear overnight if a bank could hold no more than five thousand futures contracts, as was the case until the year 2000."
December 4, 2012
I actually really did like this book, and would give it 3.5 stars if that was allowed. The main reason I didn't give it a solid four was that I found it somewhat hard to follow, although I am not sure why. The author writes in an easy, journalistic style so perhaps the problem was that I read it over a month or so, with several other books interspersed, and I was generally reading it late at night. Given the subject matter, that wasn't such a good idea.
This book makes an important argument against the "corporatization" and "financialization" of food. The author wanted to know why more people are going hungry worldwide than ever before, despite increasing harvests. The book follows his thought processes, as he investigates a group of likely suspects: the large food corporations, the proliferation of fast, processed, cheap food, and so on. THe early chapters are "lighter" but the concluding chapters seemed to have more data and be more "serious" to me.
"Bet the Farm" is more of an overview of the current situation where rampant speculation in the food commodities market is making some players extraordinarily wealthy, while more and more of the world's poor go hunger. The author outlines his search for the answer to why there is more hunger, first looking at global food corporations and the fast food phenomenon and finally finding an asnwer in the derivatives markets of the commodity exchanges.
I
This book makes an important argument against the "corporatization" and "financialization" of food. The author wanted to know why more people are going hungry worldwide than ever before, despite increasing harvests. The book follows his thought processes, as he investigates a group of likely suspects: the large food corporations, the proliferation of fast, processed, cheap food, and so on. THe early chapters are "lighter" but the concluding chapters seemed to have more data and be more "serious" to me.
"Bet the Farm" is more of an overview of the current situation where rampant speculation in the food commodities market is making some players extraordinarily wealthy, while more and more of the world's poor go hunger. The author outlines his search for the answer to why there is more hunger, first looking at global food corporations and the fast food phenomenon and finally finding an asnwer in the derivatives markets of the commodity exchanges.
I
May 20, 2013
Kaufman digs deep for both facts and ideas. He doesn't accept the easy platitudes from either the corporate apologist or the wide-eyed activist. My favorite line comes after he interviews an academic from the University of Toronto: "But I became skeptical when she told me there were two possible futures, because I suspected there were thousands of possible futures. Two possible anythings make me uneasy." Which pretty much sums up my thoughts about either side of the great food debate.
Kaufman takes us from the farms to the laboratories to the futures markets where grain is traded. He meets smart, insightful people all along the way. And he questions them all (other than Amartya Sen, who he treats like an ancient wise man on the mountaintop). I either agreed with Kaufman, or at least understood his logic, almost every step along the way. And then, at the end, he advocates national and international grain reserves, which would do more than just about anything I could imagine to take grain out of the pipeline and artifically constrict supplies. I trust the government's ability to manage grain stocks about as much as I trust them to dictate our country's ethanol policy.
But I agree with Kaufman that we need to do something to limit the ability of international banks to take huge futures positions through their commodity index funds. And even if I don't agree with all his answers, it is refreshing to read someone who at least knows enough to ask the right questions.
Kaufman takes us from the farms to the laboratories to the futures markets where grain is traded. He meets smart, insightful people all along the way. And he questions them all (other than Amartya Sen, who he treats like an ancient wise man on the mountaintop). I either agreed with Kaufman, or at least understood his logic, almost every step along the way. And then, at the end, he advocates national and international grain reserves, which would do more than just about anything I could imagine to take grain out of the pipeline and artifically constrict supplies. I trust the government's ability to manage grain stocks about as much as I trust them to dictate our country's ethanol policy.
But I agree with Kaufman that we need to do something to limit the ability of international banks to take huge futures positions through their commodity index funds. And even if I don't agree with all his answers, it is refreshing to read someone who at least knows enough to ask the right questions.
December 14, 2012
In the introduction to the book, the author writes, In 2008 "farmers produced more grain than ever, enough to feed twice as many people as were on Earth. In the same year, for the first time in history, a billion pople went hungry." The book seeks to answer the question of how this paradox is possible.
He takes us on a tour through the pizza industry. We see how and where tomatos are grown and processed. He goes into the the organizations set up specifically to end world hunger.
Where he ends up though is the commodities markets. The blame ends up squarely on the shoulders of index funds set up by wall street to buy grain futures contracts. He implies there is hoarding of grain going on through these markets.
The question that was never answered is, "where is all this extra grain going?". If the world grows twice the amount it needs, even a large amount of hoarding and waste does not answer the question of why people are still going hungry. If there is that much extra food, where is it all stored?
The book explores the issue of the world food supply without ultimately giving a satisfying cause of the problem, let alone a solution.
He takes us on a tour through the pizza industry. We see how and where tomatos are grown and processed. He goes into the the organizations set up specifically to end world hunger.
Where he ends up though is the commodities markets. The blame ends up squarely on the shoulders of index funds set up by wall street to buy grain futures contracts. He implies there is hoarding of grain going on through these markets.
The question that was never answered is, "where is all this extra grain going?". If the world grows twice the amount it needs, even a large amount of hoarding and waste does not answer the question of why people are still going hungry. If there is that much extra food, where is it all stored?
The book explores the issue of the world food supply without ultimately giving a satisfying cause of the problem, let alone a solution.
May 12, 2013
I was aware that food prices had gone up in the last five years but had chalked it up to rising fuel costs (that's probably still a factor, but not the most important one). I wasn't aware that 2008 and 2010 were actually wheat surpluses though, while the numbers of hungry rose. Kaufman started off chasing a simple question- Why can't there be healthy, delicious, and inexpensive food for all- and ends up in a rabbit hole of Big Food aggregates making things cheap while squeezing out the small guys, scientists looking for the genetic fix while would-be allies decry their hunt, and eventually to the source of the price paradox: the food commodities market. Food stopped being food and became a widget for cash- except the demand will never cease, and not fulfilling it has dire consequences. Definitely an interesting read.
October 29, 2013
This is a good book to start building an understanding on how the mass production of food in the US (at least) is tackled. The writer is fairly balanced, taking a middle road while providing tidbits of information. Food is business, plain and simple. However you look at it, business is business and that means earnings report and stock performance over health, maintenance and efficiency. The definition of healthy food doesn't change. It's the best food that can be consumed to provide the healthiest of options. However, in the quest for profits there's a lot of shortcuts taken which jeopardizes the health of the population and the economic sustainability and competitiveness (which provides for innovations and reasonable prices aka "benefits of true capitalism")of a required mechanism of human existence, a public good - food.
April 3, 2013
Kaufman does a fine job of making a a very foreign subject ... commodities, futures, hedging ... readable and (almost) understandable. Written like a treasure hunt he takes readers along on the path he follows from one lead to the next as he tries to understand how food became something other than what we eat. The answer is not easy to untangle and the solution will be even more difficult. Like the Great Recession and housing bubble, the financial industry has discovered a way to turn food into a a way to make easy fortunes while people around the world starve. Unless something is done we'll be seeing more food bubbles in our future.
June 13, 2013
Difficult book to read but quite an eye opener. I finally understood commodities and the unrealistic effect they have on market prices. It's time for Congress to step up and place limits on the number of commodities a single institution can hold. There is enough food in the world for all people to eat. Hunger needs to end and greed must be halted in its tracks through legislation. This will only happen if people open their eyes and quit being apathetic about hunger. Throwing money at the issue to dictatorial governments will not solve the problem.
September 25, 2013
Many consumers like myself aren't knowledgable about the mechanism behind the prices of our purchases.
Kaufman does an excellent job of revealing to his readers how out food (grain in particular) ends up at the price we find it at. While he does not offer a solid answer to the issue of world hunger or the commodity indexes, the reader is left curious enough to explore further.
The only flaw I found with this book is the sole focus on grain. It isn't that huge of a setback but it would have been nice to know the about the machine behind some of our other foods.
Kaufman does an excellent job of revealing to his readers how out food (grain in particular) ends up at the price we find it at. While he does not offer a solid answer to the issue of world hunger or the commodity indexes, the reader is left curious enough to explore further.
The only flaw I found with this book is the sole focus on grain. It isn't that huge of a setback but it would have been nice to know the about the machine behind some of our other foods.
August 6, 2016
After finishing the peanut butter book I read Frederick Kaufman's study of food, Bet the Farm: How Food Stopped being Food (Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 2012). Kaufman is a food journalist and he traces how food became industry in the 20th-century. Using pizza as a starting point he traces the various food stuffs that are used in pizza and how each of these has been commodified. He argues that food has become a form of currency and how this results in more food than ever and yet more people starving. The industries that result, big food, see food differently than the rest of society.
January 5, 2015
Kaufman went around the United States and world to find out why our planet is having such a food crisis. His research brought up a lot of points to think about with the food distribution in our society. Throughout the book, he had reliable and relevant sources that he got his information from. Although he did have many reasons on why there is a food crisis, he did not give a solution for helping or ending the food crisis throughout the world. The book was understandable for readers except for few parts when talking about stock market.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 21, 2015
Asserts that the problem of food production/quality/distribution is because of our economic system and the financialization and industrialization of food. Gives multiple perspectives on the issue of food.
Includes discussions of various measures of food, including Stewardship Index, commodity index and derivatives.
Is both anecdotal with his on-site research and theoretical. Usually it is easy to read, however there are too many digressions, anecdotes, names and not enough cohesive logical structure. Nor are any alternatives to this system presented.
[Iowa Mention]
Includes discussions of various measures of food, including Stewardship Index, commodity index and derivatives.
Is both anecdotal with his on-site research and theoretical. Usually it is easy to read, however there are too many digressions, anecdotes, names and not enough cohesive logical structure. Nor are any alternatives to this system presented.
[Iowa Mention]
August 15, 2013
The book grabbed me hard in the beginning with the tale of mass produced pizza but soon after became a struggle for my attention span. Full of fascinating information the book was also likely more than I bargained for. While I must say I learned a lot about our world of food markets it was much more in depth than I cared to get. Which is maybe sad as I suspect this book is something many of our politicians should read.
July 21, 2014
Jump to the conclusion: "...[A]s long as bread means nothing but money, there will be no solution." I wish Kaufman had not confirmed my cynical opinion that large corporations and greed are in the process of destroying our society, knowing how "doomsday prophet" I sound, but this book was eye-opening and sickening all at the same time. So much time and effort and expense went into his research! If only a true solution were possible.
August 23, 2016
Journalist Kaufman goes searching ways to fix the global food crisis and how money and food became interchangeable in the markets. In the end he has come to the conclusion that after making the same mistakes since recorded history that we may never fix the issue, but we can become more efficient and green in our methods to reduce the side effects of food creation to make it more affordable for all and viable.
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