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Book Review 
Thu Nov 03, 2011 at 17:24:13 PM PDT
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I recently read The Philippines: The Political Economy of Growth and Impoverishment in the Marcos Era, which provides a very readable expert economic analysis of what happened following the Green Revolution in the Philippines. Based on what I saw while I was there, the author hit the nail on the head - and sadly, little has improved for the poor since Marcos left in 1986.
What follows is more of a summary of what I learned in the book than a book review. I've included page numbers of each quote and fact as references. This is part one of two. It focuses on the impact of Green Revolution rice and land reform. The second part will cover foreign debt, logging, and export crops.
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Mon Oct 31, 2011 at 14:43:06 PM PDT
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The Small-Scale Poultry Flock by Harvey Ussery is an excellent read, with one caveat. "Small-scale" is intended to mean anywhere from 25 to a few hundred chickens. For me and many other urban chicken keepers, "small scale" means about four chickens. If you have a small farm or larger homestead, you'll find this book to be incredibly useful. If you live in the city and keep a few chickens, you'll find a lot of useful information in this book, but it shouldn't be your initial basic guide to keeping chickens.
What I LOVED about this book is that it goes beyond simply the basics like housing, feed, and chicken behavior. It is about how to use your chickens as an integral part of pest control and soil fertility. Chickens' contribution to a garden, homestead, or farm is far more than just eggs and/or meat. They provide pest control and free high-quality fertilizer as well. As Ussery points out, keeping several species can be to one's advantage, as geese are valuable for weeding and ducks will eat slugs whereas chickens might not.
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Sat Oct 08, 2011 at 23:29:32 PM PDT
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I expected that Jennifer Cockrall-King, author of an upcoming book on urban agriculture, Food and the City, would write a great book, but she exceeded my expectations. I also expected I might learn a thing or two about urban ag that I did not already know, and here Jennifer exceeded my expectations as well. The irony is that - as we discussed before the book came out - Jennifer wanted to appeal to the U.S. market in addition to the comparatively tiny Canadian market with her book, so she researched and wrote about U.S. cities in addition to Canadian, European, and Cuban ones, but it's the chapters on non-U.S. cities that are by far the most interesting.
Food and the City will be out in early 2012.
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Thu Sep 01, 2011 at 21:50:32 PM PDT
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I've just inhaled the book 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created by Charles C. Mann. I highly recommend reading it. It's amazing to me how little we know about the populating of the Americas by Europeans and Africans and about how the events that followed Christopher Columbus stumbling into the Americas shaped the world we live in today. This book tells the untold or rarely told story behind that with an emphasis on the impact of "the Columbian Exchange," i.e. what occurred when organisms from separate parts of the world were re-introduced after millions of years in both planned and unplanned ways.
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Thu Jun 30, 2011 at 19:32:01 PM PDT
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Enough: Why the World's Poorest Starve in an Age of Plenty by Roger Thurow and Scott Kilman made me want to cry. But not always for the reasons the authors intended. This book, which is extremely skillfully written, makes some good points. It also makes an awful lot of misinformed, twisted, and potentially harmful points. And it does so in such a convincing way that it is all the more dangerous. That said, it's totally worth reading Enough in order to fully understand who is calling for a Second Green Revolution, what they want, and how they are going about doing it. You just need an incredibly strong background in agriculture, economics, history, and ag policy to be able to pick out what's true and what's misleading.
UPDATE: I realized after posting this that I forgot to say probably the most important point I had about the book: The authors fail to see that they are calling for the same players, systems, and technologies that caused the problem to also be the solution. Additionally, the book totally fails to mention the impacts of climate change and land grabbing on farming and hunger in Africa and in other poor countries, and both are major factors. That said, I also forgot to mention that the book does an excellent job describing the violence in Darfur, the unique attributes of famines caused by AIDS, and the problems with Mugabe in Zimbabwe.
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Sat Apr 16, 2011 at 20:35:50 PM PDT
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Troubled Harvest: Agronomy and Revolution in Mexico, 1880-2002 by Joseph Cotter is on a crucially important topic and, unfortunately, it's not a very well-written book. The author did absolutely extensive research and succeeds in providing details I have not found anywhere else. However, my major complaint is that much of the book is written as strings of disjointed facts of minute examples (such as the number of Mexican agronomists who graduated in a given year). Here's an example of what I mean by that:
Green Revolution technologies had their greatest impact in the northwestern irrigation districts, but by 1950 the Corn Commission had promoted hybrids in 9 states, and the MAP had conducted experiments in 19 and distributed new seed in 22 and over 100 kilograms of it in 10. By 1949 the MAP conducted corn research at Chapingo, Celaya, Guadalajara, and Morelos; worked on hybrids for the tropics; and tested wheat in Chapingo, Sonora, and La Laguna. Responding to commercial farmers and other interests, the MAP studied seed potatoes, safflower, an African oilseed, insect pests of tomatoes, potato diseases, soybeans, and sorghum. - p. 194
MAP stands for Mexican Agricultural Program, which is the name of the Rockefeller Foundation project in Mexico that was the start of what later became known as the Green Revolution. The author also constantly brings up names of individuals, often by their last names only, without explaining who they are.
To be fair, the author did all the research and most of the writing and then dropped dead at the age of 46 just before the book was completed. Someone else had to finish it for him. And if that isn't enough, the footnotes are written in a frustrating format, in which several pieces of information are grouped together into one footnote which lists several sources. Since many of the sources are at the Rockefeller Archives and thus impossible to get unless you go to New York, it's very difficult to determine which fact or quote comes from which source.
The book is full of useful nuggets of information, certainly worth reading, but frustrating. A summary of the first part of the book follows below.
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Sun Mar 20, 2011 at 20:23:42 PM PDT
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If you want to understand American agriculture and agricultural policy, then you need to know something about Henry A. Wallace. Henry A. Wallace (1888-1965) was an influential man who came from an influential family. He was the editor of one of the top farm journals in America, Wallaces' Farmer, founded in the late 1800's by his dad and grandfather and still in print to this day; founder of Pioneer Hi-Bred, which commercialized and popularized hybrid corn (also still in existence today but now owned by DuPont); and served as Secretary of Agriculture, Secretary of Commerce, and Vice President under FDR. And if that wasn't enough, he is also credited as the man behind the Green Revolution.
The following is a summary of Wallace's life, using the book American Dreamer: A Life of Henry Wallace by John C. Culver and John Hyde. The book was, on the whole, excellent - but I wish it included more specifics about agriculture!
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Mon Mar 14, 2011 at 00:27:17 AM PDT
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Lately I've been reading two books simultaneously, and they tell such an intertwined story that I feel I need to review them and describe them to you together. The first is Making Poverty by Thomas Lines. It's fantastic. It tells a clear, analytical story about why some countries are poor and why they have failed to escape poverty, particularly in the last half century or so. The second is ...And the Echo Follows by Nic Paget-Clarke. It's the exact opposite of Making Poverty. You won't find numbers or charts or economic analysis in this book. It's a collection of photos and interviews, woven together by the author. It's literally a trip around the world, meeting with some of the most interesting and intelligent people (many of whom are peasants), and hearing what they have to say in their own words.
More below.
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Thu Dec 16, 2010 at 00:54:49 AM PST
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The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein is both related and unrelated to food and agriculture. Directly, it is entirely unrelated. However, the content of the book and the history it relates is very much related to the state of food and agriculture in the world. And I highly recommend that absolutely everyone read this book. Buy it for everyone you know for Christmas, Hanukkah, Festivus, or whatever you celebrate this year. It's worth it.
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Fri Dec 03, 2010 at 14:49:03 PM PST
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Seeds of Famine by Richard W. Franke and Barbara H. Chasin is an excellent account of the making of a famine in West Africa from 1968 to 1974. Popular media accounts of the famine failed to uncover the true causes - decades of ecological destruction to feed the never-ending hunger of a colonial power (France) for cheap peanuts.
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Sun Nov 07, 2010 at 20:14:32 PM PST
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Starved for Science: How Biotechnology is Being Kept Out of Africa was one of the most riveting works of fiction I have read all year! Oh wait... non-fiction, you say? Well, then it sucked.
I went into Starved for Science with as open a mind as I could. After all, my next book will be more or less a refutation of much of what Paarlberg promotes as the way to help the poor, starving farmers in the world, and it would not serve me well at all to read his book without giving it a fair chance. Perhaps there are good points to be made that support his point of view? I would look stupid in my own book if I were to ignore them. And, not only that, but helping the world's most vulnerable people is far too serious a subject to allow ideology or ego to get in the way. If I'm wrong, I want to know it. I want to challenge everything I believe to be true and test it as much as possible, because if we don't do that, we are less likely to solve the world's problems. And it seems like a good way to challenge my point of view is to read a book - a rather well-respected book (by certain crowds) - that argues that everything I believe is wrong.
More below.
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Sat Sep 25, 2010 at 16:46:23 PM PDT
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This one's a must-read folks. It's a work of freakin' brilliance. Patel's bio says that he "has worked for the World Bank and WTO and been tear-gassed on four continents protesting against them." Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System asks why we live in a world with one billion people who are hungry and another billion who are overweight.
He describes the global food system using a diagram shaped like an hourglass. At the top are the very many farm operators (3 million in the U.S. as of 2007). The diagram narrows as he names off the number of farm proprietors (just over 2 million), and farm product raw wholesale (7563). Then the diagram widens again with food manufacturers (27,915), grocery and related products wholesale (35,650), food and beverage stores (148,804), and consumers (300 million). He shows a similar diagram for several European countries, with an even skinnier middle of the hourglass. The point here is that food wholesalers and manufacturers create a bottle-neck in between the many farmers and consumers, and they hold all of the power. Patel says that it's no accident that many of the poorest and hungriest people in the world happen to be farmers and farmworkers.
Now, this much you could get from just listening to one speech by Patel (which I highly recommend doing), but the book goes on to elaborate with chapters telling about the decimation of rural communities, the role of free trade on Mexican farmers, how U.S. food aid has often done more harm than good, corporate consolidation, the Green Revolution, and more.
I am writing this review now, on the brink of my trip to Bolivia, for a reason. First of all, so much of this book is so overwhelmingly relevant in Bolivia, a country that has been a recipient of enormous amount of U.S. food and agricultural aid and yet still faces staggering poverty. In the coming weeks, you'll read the micro account of how these concepts play out in one specific country - Bolivia - on this blog. But don't forget the global context that that needs to be put in, and for that, I highly recommend checking out Stuffed and Starved.
Much more specifically, my favorite chapter in Patel's book was on the Brazilian soybean industry, and it turns out that Bolivia has a large and equally tragic soybean industry. In brief, the industry involves growing soybean as a monoculture on land that was once (recently) Amazon rainforest. Imagine how many environmentalists in the U.S. rail about saving the rainforest as they drink their soymilk (although, better that than eating burgers made from cows fed soy grown on destroyed rainforest land). This will be a part of Bolivia that I won't see, as it takes place in the eastern lowlands of the country, far from where I am visiting. But it's a part of the overall story in a big way. Patel does a brilliant job shedding light on the growth of the soy industry in Brazil. (He also tells about the MST, the Landless Rural Workers Movement, in Brazil, which he calls "the world's most important social movement".)
There's a quote out there of Sen. Chuck Grassley ranting that there's no way what he grows on his farm in Iowa will impact what a farmer grows in South America. And that's sadly mistaken. As more American land is devoted to corn when world corn prices go up due to American demand for ethanol, then the U.S. grows fewer soybeans, and soybean prices tend to go up too. This gives a greater incentive for a South American farmer to plow up more rainforest and grow more soybeans.
There have been movements in the past to get companies to shun beef fed with soybeans grown in the rainforest. But you'd have to mobilize a worldwide boycott of Amazonian soy to have any effect. If McDonald's only buys meat from cows fed U.S.-grown soy, then guess what? Someone else will buy the Brazilian stuff. It's one big global market.
All in all, this book is truly a masterpiece, and it should be mandatory reading. Especially the soybean chapter.
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Discuss
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Tue Sep 14, 2010 at 13:44:04 PM PDT
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Whenever I tell anyone what I am reading, they always reply, "Cool!" And it is. Twain's Feast: Searching for America's Lost Foods in the Footsteps of Samuel Clemens by Andrew Beahrs is unique, wonderful, and more than a little bit crazy. It makes sense though. If Mark Twain was the first great American writer, then surely the food of America during his life is an important reflection of America just as it was truly becoming America. Twain, for his part, was kind enough to provide a long list and plenty of details on his favorite foods. The author, Beahrs, literally set out to find them.
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Wed Aug 18, 2010 at 10:39:50 AM PDT
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I'll admit it. If there's such a thing as a Marion Nestle groupie, then I am one. I was absolutely thrilled when Alternet asked me to do an article and interview with Marion Nestle about her new book (together with Malden C. Nesheim), Feed Your Pet Right. In my article, I called it a new kind of expose, one that tells shockingly good news. More below.
UPDATE: Just a thought... I'm getting skewered in the comments over at Alternet (which I totally don't mind) but I thought an additional explanation would help clear things up. The attitude the book takes about commercial pet foods is based on the fact that no matter which complete-and-balanced food you choose, your pet will be nourished properly and won't develop a disease from nutrient deficiencies. Obviously, there's a difference between slaughterhouse waste of factory farmed animals and local, humane, ethical meat, just like there's a difference in the factory farmed meat humans eat and the stuff you get from your local farmer. And, obviously, the local, organic, humane, ethical stuff is always better. But at least, with commercial pet food, pets aren't suffering from diet-related illnesses on a massive scale, other than perhaps repercussions of eating too much and exercising too little. And a relatively ignorant pet owner won't have a hard time grabbing a bag off the shelf at the grocery store and feeding their pet a diet that won't kill them.
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Fri Aug 13, 2010 at 12:43:34 PM PDT
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Our fiesta was a success! Last night, I served my family a vegan Mexican meal made entirely from recipes from the book Viva Vegan! by Terry Hope Romero. As I've mentioned before, the recipes in the book are from around Latin America, not just Mexico. However, I was trying to re-create what I enjoyed eating in Jalisco, Mexico. The beautiful thing about this book is that it's written by a Latina and it's actually pretty authentic. Previous posts about this cookbook can be found here and here.
Our fiesta
Below, I describe making posole, refried beans, blue corn tortillas, and sopes, as well as my family's reaction to the food.
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