How to Feed the World: The History and Future of Food

by Vaclav Smil Narrated by Joe Jameson

Overview

"Vaclav Smil is my favorite author."-Bill Gates

An indispensable analysis of how the world really produces and consumes its food-and a scientist's exploration of how we can successfully feed a growing population without killing the planet

We have never had to feed as many people as we do today. And yet, we misunderstand the essentials of where our food really comes from, how our dietary requirements shape us, and why this impacts our planet in drastic ways. As a result, in our economic, political, and everyday choices, we take for granted and fail to prioritize the thing that makes all our lives possible: food.

In this ambitious, myth-busting book, Smil investigates many of the burning questions facing the world today: why are some of the world's biggest food producers also the countries with the most undernourished populations? Why do we waste so much food and how can we solve that? Could the whole planet go vegan and be healthy? Should it? He explores the global history of food production to understand why we farm some animals and not others, why most of the world's calories come from just a few foodstuffs, and how this might change in the future.

How to Feed the World is the data-based, rigorously researched guide that offers solutions to our broken global food system.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Smil takes readers on a scholarly and accessible exploration of the history, key concepts, and important questions about what we eat…[How to Feed the World] is a necessary book for readers seeking authoritative information on the future of successfully nourishing the world’s growing population.” —Booklist

“Concise and erudite… How to Feed the World is weighted with statistics, but there is something light and irresistible about the way Smil structures his argument and propels his narrative… After 200 pages of cold realism, it is a relief to discover that all those numbers add up to a future in which we can be hopeful.” —The Lancet

“[Smil] delves into the details of global food production [and]… recommends focusing on reducing food waste through flexible pricing and innovations in packaging design, as well as improving sustainability by decreasing meat consumption. [He] makes a convincing case for “doing more with less.'"—Publishers Weekly

MARCH 2025 - AudioFile

Joe Jameson delivers an impressive performance of this comprehensive text. His pace and cadence work well with this fact-filled audiobook; even his intelligent-sounding British accent effectively conveys Smil's expertise on the state of the world's food supply. Smil, an energy expert, has long been a student of the planet's food. He says, "Numbers are the antidote to wishful thinking," and he uses quantitative means to arrive at his recommendations. He argues astonishingly that with some improvements in diet choices, technology, and wise use of how and where we grow crops, the planet may be able to feed its projected 10 billion inhabitants in 2050. His data-driven focus balances energy needs and real-world preferences for meat with the issues surrounding land use and climate change. A.D.M. © AudioFile 2025, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

2024-12-28
Food for thought.

To begin a book about food with the word “Catastrophism” and a quotation from Thomas Robert Malthus’ 1798Essay on the Principle of Population—as this book does—is to invite pessimism. Malthus famously wrote that “the power of population is infinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man.” Now in the wake of global climate change and soaring world population, Malthus’ words seem more prescient than ever. “Inevitably,” Smil writes, “rising temperatures and increasing CO2 concentrations will have substantial plant-specific and regional differences,” possibly cutting corn and rice yields in Asia and Latin America. The author of dozens of books and a professor emeritus at the University of Manitoba, Smil aims to be fair. Indeed, he insists that he’s “agnostic about long-term prospects of the global food supply.” But when push comes to shove, he chooses optimism and insists that “it is rational to argue that, barring mass-scale conflict and unprecedented social breakdown, the world will be able to feed its growing population beyond the middle of the 21st century.” Malthus would disagree. So would recent authors who have written books that sound alarms about food insecurity and famine. Pessimists point to deforestation, the erosion of democratic institutions, and war. Smil, though, offers a quantitative approach. “Many books about agriculture and food do not contain many numbers, but this book is teeming with them,” he writes. “Numbers are the antidote to wishful thinking and are the only way to get a solid grasp of the modalities and limits of modern crop cultivation, food, and nutrition. With this foundation it is far less likely you will make incorrect interpretations or misunderstand the basic realities of food.”

A sensible vision of the future that calls for “incremental changes.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940192184417
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	03/04/2025
Edition description:	Unabridged

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