This book shows how food habits in Western society are critically dependent on low energy prices. According to Paul Roberts, the biggest profit margins and the most marketing spending relate to foods whose production absorbs the most energy. The amount of energy needed to make a pound of breakfast cereal is 32 times that needed to produce a pound of flour from the same wheat.
Corn yields may be six times what they were in the 1930s but this increase has depended on artificial fertilizer, much of which is produced using natural gas. Fertilizer production now competes for the natural gas with home heating. So, as energy prices rise, fertilizer and corn prices will rise too.
The beef, chicken, and pork that is such a big part of the world’s diet is fed almost entirely on corn. Roberts claims it takes 20lbs of grain to produce 1lb of beef. It is about half that amount to produce a pound of pork or chicken.
If US meat consumption of 217lbs per year were to be replicated worldwide, the world could only support 2.6 billion people, as against the 6 billion now living and the 9 billion predicted to be living by 2050. By highlighting the inefficiency of corn-fed beef, the author points to an opportunity for Irish grass-fed beef.
He argues that if the earth, whose arable acreage can only be increased by cutting down rainforest, is to feed the billions of extra people in Asia and Latin America who are now aspiring to Western standards of prosperity, Europeans and Americans will have to change their tastes in food.
Our tastes have developed as if food was produced in supermarkets, and not on farms. Certain beef cuts are not popular in some countries so they are exported long distances to other markets. Some countries like white chicken meat, others like brown, so parts of the same bird may be consumed thousands of miles apart. All this consumes energy in transportation.
Food must always “look good” on supermarket shelves, so vast quantities of perfectly edible and safe food is dumped, just because it has lost the pristine appearance consumers have come to expect.
Heavy use wears out some soils. Too much irrigation using underground water (as against rain water) can make soils too salty to remain fertile. 75% of all freshwater used by humans is used in agriculture. Water stocks in some countries, like Spain, are being depleted.
Our globally interdependent food system, based on “just in time” delivery, is inherently fragile. It is vulnerable to disruption by a failure of crops in one place, but can also transmit infections more quickly than localized systems would.
Reliance on take-out meals also increases the risk of food poisoning. The average hamburger contains meat from 55 different animals. If just one of those sources is infected and the burger is not properly cooked, a problem will arise.
Roberts’ most hopeful comment is about the possibility of developing aquaculture. Fish are far more efficient than cattle, chickens or pigs are in converting vegetable matter into meat. The challenge, he says, is to find a way of fish farming on the high seas, where the effluent associated with coastal fish farming can more easily be dispersed.
Paul Roberts’ book is both timely and alarming. It shows us that the food problem is like the climate change problem. The full cost of what we consume is not reflected in the price we pay. A meat-rich diet for the few uses up acres that might feed the many, but on a different diet. But there is no globally accepted rule-maker to ensure that prices reflect our long-term global interests as well as short-term personal tastes.
This book is well-written, with authorities quoted to support its often controversial conclusions. But, apart from what is says about fish farming, it contains few ready-to-use solutions.
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