Perilous Bounty: The Looming Collapse of American Farming and How We Can Prevent It

by Tom Philpott

Overview

New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice

An unsettling journey into the disaster-bound American food system, and an exploration of possible solutions, from leading food politics commentator and former farmer Tom Philpott.

More than a decade after Michael Pollan's game-changing The Omnivore's Dilemma transformed the conversation about what we eat, a combination of global diet trends and corporate interests have put American agriculture into a state of "quiet emergency," from dangerous drought in California—which grows more than 50 percent of the fruits and vegetables we eat—to catastrophic topsoil loss in the "breadbasket" heartland of the United States. Whether or not we take heed, these urgent crises of industrial agriculture will define our future.

In Perilous Bounty, veteran journalist and former farmer Tom Philpott explores and exposes the small handful of seed and pesticide corporations, investment funds, and magnates who benefit from the trends that imperil us, with on-the-ground dispatches featuring the scientists documenting the damage and the farmers and activists who are valiantly and inventively pushing back.

Resource scarcity looms on the horizon, but rather than pointing us toward an inevitable doomsday, Philpott shows how the entire wayward ship of American agriculture could be routed away from its path to disaster. He profiles the farmers and communities in the nation's two key growing regions developing resilient, soil-building, water-smart farming practices, and readying for the climate shocks that are already upon us; and he explains how we can help move these methods from the margins to the mainstream.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781635578454
Publisher:	Bloomsbury USA
Publication date:	05/03/2022
Pages:	256
Sales rank:	238,591
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Tom Philpott has been the food and agriculture correspondent for Mother Jones since 2011. Previously, he covered food as a writer and editor for the environmental-news website Grist. Philpott's work on food politics has appeared in the New York Times, Newsweek, and the Guardian, among other places. From 2004 to 2012, he farmed at Maverick Farms in Valle Crucis, NC. He lives in North Carolina and Austin, Texas.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

1 High and Dry 10

2 The Flood Next Time 34

3 Pumping Air 52

4 Empire of Dirt 73

5 Failing Upward 103

6 Gully Washers 124

7 The Big Lift 148

8 The Future of the Farm 166

Acknowledgments 193

Notes 195

Index 237

Editorial Reviews

[Philpott] wants to focus our attention squarely on the environmental consequences of the global and, especially, the American way of raising food. Nothing, his new Perilous Bounty reminds us, is going in the right direction ... We can’t lose sight of the land, water and air that need the loudest and longest advocacy. Perilous Bounty will line up many new recruits.” - New York Times Book Review

“The most important book on the food system in years.” - Michael Pollan, via Twitter

“Makes a solid case that our intensive, industrial farm practices are draining California aquifers and causing severe fertile soil erosion in the Plains states ... [Philpott] deftly pulls together the whole crisis.” - Associated Press

“[A] vitally important, lucidly written book.” - Alice Waters

“This must-read book is deeply researched, compellingly written, and thoroughly inspiring.” - Marion Nestle, PhD, author of FOOD POLITICS and UNSAVORY TRUTH

“Perilous Bounty offers a simple choice. We can change our centralized, industrialized, corporate-controlled system of food production—or watch it collapse.” - Eric Schlosser, author of FAST FOOD NATION and COMMAND AND CONTROL

“A tour de force — [Perilous Bounty] showcases the danger we’re in as the environmental vise tightens, and how we might still find our way out of this hole.” - Bill McKibben, author of THE END OF NATURE and FALTER

“Tom Philpott has been one of the leading lights in food-and-farming journalism over the last decade. In Perilous Bounty, he continues to show why his voice is a much-needed one, warning us about the impending collapse of industrial agriculture – and revealing what we can do about it.” - Mark Bittman, author of HOW TO COOK EVERYTHING

“Masterful, important, and sobering — a must-read for anyone who eats and hopes to continue doing so in our changing world.” - Barry Estabrook, author of TOMATOLAND

“A solid, keenly drawn critique of American agricultural circumstances and consequences.” - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Lucidly written, well-researched, and laced with profiles of farmers and communities fighting against the odds, this is a persuasive call for sweeping changes to the American food system.” - Publishers Weekly

“Precise and pointed ... With patient, quiet outrage and persuasive testimony from experts, Philpott makes the case that American farming faces multiple looming crises ... will terrify readers hoping for a sustainable future and will move them to action.” - Shelf Awareness

From the Publisher

09/07/2020

Journalist Philpott debuts with an illuminating and distressing examination of how climate change and poor natural resource management threaten America’s food supply. Focusing on California’s Central Valley, where irrigated farms supply a quarter of the nation’s food, and the Midwest, which produces much of America’s meat, corn, and soybeans, Philpott documents how agribusinesses in these regions are “actively consuming the ecological foundations that support agriculture itself.” In arid California, warmer temperatures have diminished the Sierra Nevada snowpack on which Central Valley farms rely, leading to fewer crops and smaller yields. Communities in the region have also been forced to buy bottled water to avoid water supplies contaminated by farm runoff. In the former prairie lands of the Midwest, industrialized farming, genetically modified crops, and climate change have impoverished both the soil and farmers themselves. Philpott’s proposed solutions draw from organic farming methods, including crop rotation, planting cover crops to suppress weeds and reduce soil erosion, and “pasture-based meat production.” He concludes by endorsing the Green New Deal and legislative efforts to curb the excesses of agribusiness. Lucidly written, well-researched, and laced with profiles of farmers and communities fighting against the odds, this is a persuasive call for sweeping changes to the American food system. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

★ 2020-05-04
The food and agricultural correspondent for Mother Jones takes a focused look at the ecological degradation caused by industrial agriculture in the U.S.

Philpott offers a view—primarily of California’s Central Valley and the Midwest Corn Belt—of what the political and economic forces of corporate-dominated agriculture are contributing to the decline of the environmental resources of these two main production regions. The author is deeply invested in—and knowledgeable about—all the ins and outs of the virtual oligarchy that controls American agriculture, from the seeds to the market destinations. It’s hardly surprising—though depressing nonetheless—that fewer than a dozen giant companies have so concentrated agricultural production that they have stretched resources such as natural soil fertility and freshwater resources to the point of environmental calamity. As Philpott amply illustrates, via enlightening interviews with hydrologists, geologists, soil chemists, and entomologists, the demands that corn/soy/meat culture have put on the Corn Belt, as well as the water burden of the industries of the Central Valley, are not only unsustainable, but likely catastrophic for future farming on that land. In the absence of cover crops to protect the land from increasingly severe storms, the Midwest’s once-deep soil is often washed away down the Mississippi River, ending up in the Gulf of Mexico, where its fertilizer loads spawn algal blooms that transform into dead zones. Philpott is especially good in his explanations of alternative agricultural modes of production, which, for the most part, involve increasing diversity, mixing it up, and spreading it out. The author also explores the unique problems facing midsized farmers—too small for the national chains and too big for local farmers markets—and the complete overhaul of production required to break the monoculture mindset. Philpott is not optimistic about the current political landscape, with a “climate change denier” as president and crucial regulatory agencies “shot through with former oil and agribusiness industry execs and flacks.”

A solid, keenly drawn critique of American agricultural circumstances and consequences.

Kirkus Reviews