The Coming Famine: The Global Food Crisis and What We Can Do to Avoid it - Softcover

In The Coming Famine, Julian Cribb lays out a vivid picture of an impending planetary crisis - a global food shortage that threatens to hit by mid-century - which, he argues, would dwarf any in our previous experience. Cribb's comprehensive assessment points to a dangerous confluence of shortages - of water, land, energy, technology, and knowledge - combined with an increased demand created by population and economic growth. Writing in brisk, accessible prose, Cribb explains how the food system interacts with the environment and with armed conflict, poverty, and other societal factors. He shows that high food prices and regional shortages are already sending out shockwaves to the international community. He warns that the heightened risk of regional famines will have a planet-wide effect on food prices, trade, and conflict and will generate new waves of refugees. But, far from outlining a doomsday scenario, The Coming Famine is a strong and positive call to action, exploring the greatest issue of our age and providing practical suggestions for addressing and averting each of the major challenges it raises.

In the coming half century humanity faces a planetary crisis that will affect everyone. A doubling in human demand for food is set to collide with increasing scarcities of the very resources needed to grow our food - water, land, energy, nutrients and knowledge - under the lash of a changing world climate. Urgent action is now needed to ensure global food security, or else we run the risk of regional famines, the tidal movements of tens of millions of refugees and wars. The Coming Famine explores the issue most central to the human destiny in the coming generations - and puts forward practical answers for what we can all do about it.