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Can We Feed the World Without Destroying It?
Nearly a third of the world's population suffers from hunger or malnutrition. Feeding them - and the projected population of 10 billion people by 2050 - has become a high-profile challenge for states, philanthropists, and even the Fortune 500. This has unleashed a steady march of initiatives to double food production within a generation. But will doing so tax the resources of our planet beyond its capacity?
In this sobering essay, scholar-practitioner Eric Holt-Gim�nez argues that the ecological impact of doubling food production would be socially and environmentally catastrophic and would not feed the poor. We have the technology, resources, and expertise to feed everyone. What is needed is a thorough transformation of the global food regime - one that increases equity while producing food and reversing agriculture's environmental impacts.
In this sobering essay, scholar-practitioner Eric Holt-Gim�nez argues that the ecological impact of doubling food production would be socially and environmentally catastrophic and would not feed the poor. We have the technology, resources, and expertise to feed everyone. What is needed is a thorough transformation of the global food regime - one that increases equity while producing food and reversing agriculture's environmental impacts.
136 pages, Paperback
Published January 4, 2019
About the author
Eric Holt-Giménez
13 books15 followersAgroecologist, political economist and author. From 1975-2002 he worked in Mexico, Central America, and South Africa in sustainable agricultural development. During this time he helped to start the Campesino a Campesino (Farmer to Farmer) Movement. He returned to the U.S. twice during this period: once for his M.Sc. In International Agricultural Development (UC Davis, 1981) and then for his Ph.D. in Environmental Studies (UC Santa Cruz, 2002). His dissertation research was the basis for his first book "Campesino a Campesino: Voices from the farmer-to-farmer movement for sustainable agriculture in Latin America." After getting his Ph.D. with an emphasis in agroecology and political economy, he taught as a university lecturer at UC Santa Cruz and Boston University in the International Honors Program in Global Ecology.
In 2004-2006 he became the Latin America Program Coordinator for the Bank Information Center in Washington, D.C. His seminal work "Land-Gold-Reform: The Territorial Restructuring of the Guatemalan Highlands" links the struggle against extractive industries with the struggle for land in Latin America (published in English, Spanish and Portuguese), is a product of this experience. In June, 2006 he was hired as the executive director of Food First the Institute for Food and Development Policy, a people's think tank started be Francis Moore Lappe over thirty years ago. He specializes in environmental studies, area studies, development studies, agroecology and the political economy of hunger. He works closely with social movements in the U.S. and internationally and asserts that, “Successful social movements are formed by integrating activism with livelihoods. These integrated movements create the deep sustained social pressure that produces political will—the key to changing the financial, governmental, and market structures that presently work against sustainability.” Walden Bello is a particular advocate of the importance of Gimenez’s work, referring to him as one of the world’s most “prominent critics of the global food system.”
In 2004-2006 he became the Latin America Program Coordinator for the Bank Information Center in Washington, D.C. His seminal work "Land-Gold-Reform: The Territorial Restructuring of the Guatemalan Highlands" links the struggle against extractive industries with the struggle for land in Latin America (published in English, Spanish and Portuguese), is a product of this experience. In June, 2006 he was hired as the executive director of Food First the Institute for Food and Development Policy, a people's think tank started be Francis Moore Lappe over thirty years ago. He specializes in environmental studies, area studies, development studies, agroecology and the political economy of hunger. He works closely with social movements in the U.S. and internationally and asserts that, “Successful social movements are formed by integrating activism with livelihoods. These integrated movements create the deep sustained social pressure that produces political will—the key to changing the financial, governmental, and market structures that presently work against sustainability.” Walden Bello is a particular advocate of the importance of Gimenez’s work, referring to him as one of the world’s most “prominent critics of the global food system.”
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
November 12, 2020
This book plugs in tightly with Andrew Yang's philosophy of people-centered capitalism. Holt-Gimenez elaborates on how neo-liberalism and the repercussions of the Green Revolution have created a poverty problem among the world's small-scale growers. The nearsighted view is that we don't have enough food, but the statistics disagree: we produce 1.5x as much food as we currently need. As he states "The problem is not hunger but poverty. The solution is not charity but an increase in the political power of the poor."
The idea of food sovereignty is especially present this year - when autonomy over growing and processing food was a big issue in my own family; losing access to our butcher put a business at a halt. 2020 has also hopefully begun an era of reckoning in which power imbalances are finally going to be addressed for BIPOC and in particular women around the world who grow food and have been oppressed by the conglomerated food industrial complex.
The author's two closing points are "action items", but ones more easily said than done: internalize all costs of making food, and dismantle food monopolies. Ok, great plan!
A tight essay, hard to keep up with his amalgamation of research sometimes, but overall good.
The idea of food sovereignty is especially present this year - when autonomy over growing and processing food was a big issue in my own family; losing access to our butcher put a business at a halt. 2020 has also hopefully begun an era of reckoning in which power imbalances are finally going to be addressed for BIPOC and in particular women around the world who grow food and have been oppressed by the conglomerated food industrial complex.
The author's two closing points are "action items", but ones more easily said than done: internalize all costs of making food, and dismantle food monopolies. Ok, great plan!
A tight essay, hard to keep up with his amalgamation of research sometimes, but overall good.
December 31, 2018
A small book with big ideas.
March 11, 2019
Great book on how capitalism causes hunger.
November 13, 2019
A great small book, felt more like an extended essay. Easy and quick to read, and full of ideas that can be explored more thoroughly in other more detailed books.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews