Who Will Feed China?: Wake-Up Call for a Small Planet - Softcover

Brown, Lester R.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1853833169 ISBN 13: 9781853833168

Publisher: Earthscan / James & James, 1995

Synopsis

This work discusses the consequences for the world's food supply of rapidly increasing prosperity in China and the "Tiger" economies of the Far East. It argues that the prospects of food production keeping pace with growing population and growing consumer demands for protein are not good.

About this title

From the Back Cover

To feed its 1.2 billion people, China may soon have to import so much grain that this action could trigger unprecedented rises in world food prices. In Who Will Feed China: Wake-up Call for a Small Planet, Lester Brown shows that even as water becomes more scarce in a land where 80 percent of the grain crop is irrigated, as per-acre yield gains are erased by the loss of cropland to industrialization, and as food production stagnates, China still increases its population by the equivalent of a new Beijing each year. When Japan, a nation of just 125 million, began to import food, world grain markets rejoiced. But when China, a market ten times bigger, starts importing, there may not be enough grain in the world to meet that need - and food prices will rise steeply for everyone. Analysts foresaw that the recent four-year doubling of income for China's 1.2 billion consumers would increase food demand, especially for meat, eggs, and beer. But these analysts assumed that food production would rise to meet those demands.

About the Author

Lester R. Brown is the founder of the Earth Policy and Worldwatch Institutes. He has been honored with numerous prizes, including a MacArthur Fellowship, the United Nations Environment Prize, and twenty-five honorary degrees. He lives in Washington, D.C.

About this edition

• Publisher: Earthscan / James & James
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 1853833169
• ISBN 13: 9781853833168
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 160