Full Planet, Empty Plates: The New Geopolitics of Food Scarcity

by Lester R. Brown

Overview

Food is the new oil. Land is the new gold.

The world food situation is deteriorating. Grain stocks have dropped to a dangerously low level. The World Food Price Index has doubled in one decade. The ranks of the hungry are expanding; political unrest is spreading.

On the demand side of the food equation, there will be 219,000 people at the dinner table tonight who were not there last night. And some 3 billion increasingly affluent people are moving up the food chain, consuming grain-intensive livestock and poultry products.

At the same time, water shortages and heat waves are making it more difficult for farmers to keep pace with demand. As grain-exporting countries ban exports to keep their food prices down, importing countries are panicking. In response, they are buying large tracts of land in other countries to grow food for themselves. The land rush is on.

Could food become the weak link for us as it was for so many earlier civilizations? Lester Brown, one of the leading environmentalists of our time, explains why world food supplies are tightening and tells what we need to do about it.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393344530
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	09/24/2012
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	160
Sales rank:	864,170
File size:	486 KB

About the Author

Lester R. Brown is the founder of the Earth Policy and Worldwatch Institutes. He has been honored with numerous prizes, including a MacArthur Fellowship, the United Nations Environment Prize, and twenty-five honorary degrees. He lives in Washington, D.C.

Table of Contents

Preface xi

1 Food: The Weak Link 3

2 The Ecology of Population Growth 15

3 Moving Up the Food Chain 24

4 Food or Fuel? 36

5 Eroding Soils Darkening Our Future 45

6 Peak Water and Food Scarcity 57

7 Grain Yields Starting to Plateau 72

8 Rising Temperatures, Rising Food Prices 83

9 China and the Soybean Challenge 93

10 The Global Land Rush 101

11 Can We Prevent a Food Breakdown? 114

Index 125

Acknowledgements 137

About the Author 143

Permission for reprinting or excerpting portions of the manuscript can be obtained from Reah Janise Kauffman at Earth Policy Institute. For full citations, data, and additional information on the topics discussed in this book, see earth-policy.org.

Editorial Reviews

"One of the world’s most influential thinkers."

Washington Post

Lester Brown is one of the pioneers and heroes of global environmentalism.

Edward O. Wilson

One of the world’s most influential thinkers.

Washington Post