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Paul Roberts
The End of Food
The Coming Crisis in the World Food Industry
Bloomsbury, 2008
What's inside?
The global food system was based on cheap oil, but oil is no longer cheap. So, what does that portend for food?
Recommendation
Journalist Paul Roberts investigated the global food-delivery system and he reports that food product production and prices have advanced like the production and prices of other contemporary consumer goods. The economics of the food system push an ever-faster product cycle driven by supply-and-demand pressures. The infrastructure that delivers food to consumers uses ever-advancing technology. However, food itself is not an ordinary consumer “product.” Inexpensive food is an illusion, because the process externalizes many food production costs as cheap labor or cheap oil. Roberts explains why the food-delivery system is mired in economic, political and cultural problems, and examines the crisis that looms if it runs out of fuel or water, or both. getAbstract recommends this investigation to readers who want to understand the production, market and consumer implications involved in feeding the people on our planet.
About the Author
Journalist Paul Roberts’ work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post and National Geographic. He is also the author of The End of Oil.
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