Future shocks in the global food economy

It is generally believed that the fossil fuel problem is the greatest issue plaguing the earth’s future.

- SNEHA PATHAK

Solve it, and we will have saved the earth. But what if this isn’t completely true? What if there’s another equally urgent yet overlooked subject that needs our attention? This other subject — the land problem — lies at the heart of Michael Grunwald’s We Are Eating the Earth. Our land problem, he claims, is mostly an agriculture problem because humans are constantly shrinking green spaces for producingmore food. Leaving this pattern unchecked means that even if we reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, we will still not have saved the earth.

Mr Grunwald is an American journalist who has written books on the Obama era and the destruction of the Everglades in southern Florida. In We Are Eating the Earth, Mr Grunwald turns towards agricultural practices, something often left out when talking about saving the earth. He argues that agriculture plays a major role in deforestation, water loss, water pollution as well as biodiversity loss. Only a massive overhaul, including rethinking of agricultural policies, can change this scenario. To prove his point, he makes use of the research and personality of Tim Searchinger, a senior research scholar at Princeton who is also affiliated with World Resources Institute in Washington, and has been working on environmental change and conservation for more than two decades.