Food's Frontier: The Next Green Revolution - Hardcover

Richard Manning

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0865475938 ISBN 13: 9780865475939

Publisher: North Point Press, 2000

Synopsis

An eye-opening look at how the world will feed itself in the coming decades

By now it is clear that the techniques of the first "Green Revolution" that averted mass starvation a generation ago --pesticides, chemical fertilizers, focusing on a few key crops--are threatening the food supply for future generations. Interestingly, the solution to this dilemma seems most likely to emerge from the still-developing world, where alternative methods and philosophies, based on indigenous knowledge and native crops as well as genetic engineering and other technological advances, are still possible.
Richard Manning reports on this emerging Green Revolution, placing it in social and political context, and presenting some surprising and controversial solutions to this most pressing environmental problem.

About this title

About the Author

Richard Manning is the author of Last Stand, A Good House, Grassland, and One Round River. He lives in Montana.

Reviews

In 1969 Paul Ehrlich predicted worldwide famine within a decade, failing to foresee the rapid gains in food production, known as the Green Revolution, which came with the advent of chemical fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides. Today we have reached the limits of what this technology can do to produce higher yields, and the overuse of chemicals threatens to ruin the soil and the health of people and the environment. Manning assesses the potential for the next Green Revolution and suggests that creative solutions will come from developing nations as well as from the high-tech world of biotechnology. He takes readers to Africa, China, India, Mexico, and South America to learn how ancient methods like crop rotation and interplanting are used to prolong the land's fertility, and how famine-stricken areas are receiving a boost from modern gene-splicing techniques. Manning also profiles underfunded research scientists who are investigating ingenious methods for thwarting pests and poor weather, pioneers who may very well determine our species' ability to feed itself in the coming decades. David Siegfried
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Beginning with the assumption that monocultures and high-input agriculture are unsustainable and that the "Green Revolution" has failed, environmental writer Manning (One Round River) attempts to lay a course for a new way to practice agricultural research and production. Research needs to be cast in a social matrix that integrates research using (and preserving) local farmers and culture, tested methods, diversification, smaller scales, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) friendly to local ecosystems and committed to improving the life of the poor. Agriculture extension programs have missed this approach, says Manning. He uses examples from projects funded by the McKnight Foundation in nine countries, including India, China, Uganda, Brazil, and Mexico. He does not rule out genetic engineering as part of the equation, arguing that this technology may be no more dangerous than our current methods of growing foods with high chemical inputs. Manning's book is not easily digested and often raises more questions than it answers. Suitable for academic libraries, it should be read (last chapter first) by agricultural researchers and policy makers as well as sociologists.DTim McKimmie, New Mexico State Univ. Lib., Las Cruces
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: North Point Press
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0865475938
• ISBN 13: 9780865475939
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 272