Description
The United Nations has described the world's present food problems as 'the gravest crisis mankind has faced'. Yet resources can be made to match demands at least for the foreseeable future; world population can be stabilized well within sustainable limits-even though it may yet increase several times-and cherished traditional eating habits, far from impeding progress, not only can but should form the basis of diet in a crowded world. But present food policies, based on industrialized, monocultural agriculture, on trade that is inequitable and wasteful, and on processing- regarding crops not as food, but as raw materials for manufacture-must make the problems worse, and may so dissipate resources as to make a solution impossible.This book exposes the flaws in present diagnoses of our food problems, in the policies designed to cope with them, and in the economic and nutritional theories on which those policies are based. It argues that we must use technology to build upon traditional husbandry and cuisine, and not, as now, to supersede them, and that only thus can we hope to feed all the world's people well. It demands a radical re-think of our methods and our aspirations. ISBN:9780571108879
