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Review | Food without farms – a blueprint for feeding the world and saving the planet by George Monbiot, environmental activist
- George Monbiot’s prediction that the global food system would break down came true when Russia invaded Ukraine. He has some ideas for what should replace it
- Modern farming is destroying land and harming soil fertility, so move most food production to factories and let nature recover, the environmental activist says
Reading Time:4 minutes
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Regenesis: Feeding the World Without Devouring the Planet by George Monbiot, pub. Penguin Books
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The week Russia invaded Ukraine, bread prices in Yemen jumped 35 per cent. In Lebanon, flour-deprived bakeries were suddenly forced to close, and cooking oil in Kenya all but disappeared from store shelves.
The war – in a region that supplies about a third of the world’s wheat and three-quarters of its sunflower oil – hit the pause button on the global food supply, and billions around the planet felt an ominous pang like the stab of impending hunger.
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“When I wrote the book describing how the global food system would break down, I really had no idea,” says George Monbiot about his latest book, Regenesis: Feeding the World Without Devouring the Planet. “I was shocked to see the speed at which it now seems to be happening. I didn’t set out to position myself as the Doctor Doom of the global food system.”
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