How to Feed the World: The History and Future of Food

In this granular study, Smil (Size), a geography professor emeritus at the University of Manitoba, delves into the details of global food production. Exploring the difficulty of supplying humans with adequate nutrition, Smil notes that an adult male trying to survive solely on fruits and vegetables would have to eat, for instance, 40 pounds of lettuce or 10 pounds of apples per day. Animal products provide more efficient means of consuming necessary fats and proteins, but Smil contends they come with high costs, including the diversion of vast amounts of water for growing livestock feed and the release of 8.7 billion tons of methane into the atmosphere annually. Weighing in on proposals to make food production more sustainable and efficient, Smil suggests that the technological challenges and high costs of producing lab-grown meat mean it’s unlikely to replace livestock anytime soon, and that forgoing synthetic fertilizers and pesticides would lower crop yields by 20% and leave 40% of humanity without enough to eat. Instead, Smil recommends focusing on reducing food waste through flexible pricing and innovations in packaging design, as well as improving sustainability by decreasing meat consumption. Smil makes a convincing case for “doing more with less,” though his “unapologetic” surfeit of statistics and jargon (“trophic levels”; “feed conversion ratios”) can make for dry reading. Though persuasive, this is a bit of a slog. Photos. (Mar.)