Book review: Full Planet, Empty Plates by Lester Brown

Mike Childs

21 November 2012

You might want to sit down before reading Lester Brown's new book Full Planet, Empty Plate because it is a fact based horror story waiting to happen.

In it he pulls together research on many, but not all, of the major threats to feeding a growing population.

He tells us there has been a fivefold increase in global meat consumption since 1950 and how fish consumption has also soared, with a third of fish now coming from fish farming.  He says these trends are continuing as developing countries move towards a more western diet; and a third of the global annual grain harvest and most of the soybean harvest is now destined for inefficient meat production. Not only do we need to reduce consumption of these products he says, but when we do eat meat or fish we should be consuming those that are much more efficient at turning feed into protein, for example carp instead of salmon, chicken instead of beef.

He laments the folly of using grain to power our cars rather than to feed people. A third of the US grain harvest now goes to produce ethanol for cars rather than feeding people or restocking the dangerous low global food stores. He rightly asks, why aren't we moving faster on producing electric cars instead?

He warns us that degrading our soils threaten our ability to feed ourselves. He highlights that in populace India a quarter of its land is turning to desert, and Nigeria is losing almost 1 million acres of grassland and crop-land to desert each year. "The accelerating loss of topsoil is slowly but surely reducing the Earth's inherent biological productivity" he warns.

Roughly 40 per cent of the world grain harvest is grown on irrigated land he tells us. But in much of this land the water is running out, through over-depleted underground water aquifers or rivers that are being over-abstracted or drying-up. Three and a half billion people live in countries where underground water is being used unsustainable to create 'food bubbles' than could soon burst, creating mass hunger, conflict and the growth of failed states.

And he repeats the warnings of many before him that climate change threatens to cause havoc to food production, with around a 10-20 per cent cut in output for every one degree increase in global temperatures for some crops. A scary thought given latest predictions say we are on course for 4-6 degrees of warming by the end of the century.

This is just a taste of some of the warnings in Full Planet, Empty Plate.

But Lester Brown also has a recipe for getting us out of the almighty mess. He suggests the answers are reducing meat consumption, reversing biofuels policy, stabilising climate change, raising water productivity, conserving soil and constraining population growth by empowering women and providing education. All of these are goals that Friends of the Earth supports. Putting them into practice is a herculean task, but one that Full Planet, Empty Plates makes clear is critical if we are to have any hope of feeding a growing population.   

Full Planet, Empty Plate may be a scary read but it is an accessible and necessary one.