How to Feed the World

by Vaclav Smil

‘There is no author whose books I look forward to more’ BILL GATES

In this ambitious, myth-busting book, leading scientist and internationally bestselling author Vaclav Smil investigates many of the burning questions facing the world

Why are some of the world’s biggest food producers also the countries with the most undernourished populations?

Why is food waste a colossal 1,000kcal per person daily, and how can we solve that?

Could we all go vegan and be healthy? Should we?

How will we feed the ballooning population without killing the planet?

How Food Really Works shows how we misunderstand the essentials of where our food really comes from, how our dietary requirements shape us, and why this impacts our planet in drastic ways. Ultimately, this data-based, rigorously researched guide explains how we will survive and thrive long into the future.

‘There is perhaps no other academic who paints pictures with numbers like Smil’ GUARDIAN

Genres: Nonfiction, Science, Food, Economics, History, Politics, Sustainability

Hardcover

First published March 4, 2025

About the author

Vaclav Smil is a Czech-Canadian scientist and policy analyst whose work spans energy, environment, food, population, economics, history, and public policy. Educated at Charles University in Prague and later at Pennsylvania State University, where he earned his Ph.D. in geography, Smil emigrated from Czechoslovakia to the United States in 1969 following the Soviet invasion, before beginning his long academic career at the University of Manitoba in 1972. Over the decades he established himself as a leading voice on global energy systems, environmental change, and economic development, with particular attention to China. Smil has consistently argued that transitions to renewable energy will be gradual rather than rapid, emphasizing the persistence of coal, oil, and natural gas and highlighting the difficulties of decarbonizing critical industries such as steel, cement, ammonia, and plastics. He has also been skeptical of indefinite economic growth, suggesting that human consumption could be sustained at much lower levels of material and energy use. Widely admired for his clear, data-driven analyses, Smil counts Bill Gates among his readers, while colleagues have praised his rigor and independence. Known for his reclusiveness and preference for letting his books speak for him, he has nonetheless lectured extensively worldwide and consulted for major institutions. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and a member of the Order of Canada, Smil remains a highly influential public intellectual.

Reviews

[Bill Gates · Rating 4 out of 5]

Vaclav Smil’s How to Feed the World is a must-read for anyone interested in the complexities of global food security. He takes a deep dive into the global food system to challenge common assumptions about hunger, food production, and waste. What makes his work so compelling (and why I always love reading his books) is his ability to offer historical context that explains not just where we are today but how we got here—and where we need to go to solve big challenges like malnutrition. Like Vaclav's other books, How to Feed the World made me rethink what I thought I knew and questions things I'd taken for granted. It’s a fascinating read from my favorite author.

[Paul (Life In The Slow Lane) · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you're a hyper-intelligent chicken, you ain't gonna like this.

This is a hyper-detailed tome that is probably more suited to deep thinkers, hyper-intellectuals and super-academics. The facts are overwhelming! I mean...my eyes glaze over after 5 minutes with our financial planner, but this book even beat that.

At least I didn't hoick it out the window and take to it with the lawn mower. God knows, I wanted to. I dutifully ploughed my way through this thing simply because there were some interesting titbits here and there. Did you know an average adult male (if he had nothing else to eat) would need to eat 18kg (39lbs) of lettuce per day to survive? Or 6 to 8kg of fruit and vegetables? Vegetarians are not doing the world a favour. It takes something like 10 times the water to grow cereals and nuts. Eating fish is not healthy (for the fish or the planet and sometimes - you) although it's a healthier protein than beef.

1. We need to eat less beef, more pork and chicken...and beans. 2. We need to grow a LOT more edible stuff. 3. We need to reduce food waste. 4. Reduce the environmental burdens growing all that KFC err...food. There ya go. Now you don't have to read all those extra unnecessary facts. BUT, if you really want a summary without the mind-numbing facts, just read the last chapter, which is excellent.

5 stars for the last chapter. 1 star for everything else (harsh, I know). So that averages out to 2.5 stars.

I'm hungry. I'm gonna fix me some pork and beans.

[Corrado · Rating 4 out of 5]

At this point, I'm basically a regular reader of Smil. This is the fourth book of his I've read. It might not be his best one, mainly because it condenses ideas and arguments he’s already explored in his previous works.

That said, it's always fascinating to hear his perspective, especially given how grounded in data it is. Smil focuses more on the past and present, and when he does make predictions, he’s extremely cautious - but more often than not, he’s right.

I liked the part where he critiques the notion that we would be better off if we had remained hunter-gatherers. He argues that the societies we know today only exist because of the development of agriculture and the communities that formed around it.

The part on reducing food waste was also very interesting, as was his explanation of why turning the entire world vegan is neither feasible nor sustainable - at least not at the moment, and not for the foreseeable future.

All in all, a very interesting and definitely not boring read.

[Rachel Fisher · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had high hopes for this- but the author sets up a series of increasingly twiggy straw people and then fails to address any of the political, cultural or even really economic issues.

The two key take aways: reduce food waste and eat less meat are fine (though he ignores the environmental impact of meats and dairy other than beef).

[Liz · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little bit like if Spock wrote a PhD on the resources needed to produce and distribute different kinds of foodstuffs, and the energy/environmental input and outputs of them in each country. Less of a health guide and more of a food analysis which I appreciated!
60% of this book is statistics, but it was oddly calming to listen to and super fascinating. I can’t deny that this is extremely well researched, and honestly it could have been so much drier than it turned out to be.
3.5 stars

[Nital Jethalal · Rating 2 out of 5]

My excitement for this book finally soon shifted to sustained disappointment.

1. For all book heavy on statistics (and there are some good ones), it's surprising to see Smil draw big conclusions from a single stat from a single study or source with known problems, such as feeding cows seaweed as a promising tech solution.

2. No climate change focus despite how much food systems impact the global south, especially through the destruction of their rainforests and water, and how big a role they have to play as a solution.

3. Most surprisingly, a book on feeding the world without addressing the incredible corporatization and financialization of food systems. The incentives structure must be assessed, foremost subsidies and protectionism, if we're to expect real balance to re-emerge. It's perplexing that Smil omits this discussion.

4. Smil speaks to the importance of dietary shifts at times and yet doesn't address the powerful best practices and research that reflect how much behavioral interventions can influence demand for the better (health, planet and animals).

Overall, Smil is capable of much better and I fear that many won't cross check many of the sources for the stats upon which he places great emphasis to paint a narrative that is incomplete and, at times, uses faulty evidence.

[Gavin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Trying to learn about farming and food acquisition strategies from this book was like trying to learn about culinary tradition by reading the caloric contents of a supermarket shelf. The author has no practical experience in farming or food acquisition, and the ideas promoted in this book (even taken with a large grain of salt) should not have a seat at the same table as policy or financing discussions that affect actual farmers, ranchers, land stewards, and those involved in food and the land. 

The reasonable advice in this book may be summarized as waste not want not, something you probably heard from your parents and they from theirs. Anyone who has boiled off 39 parts water from collected maple sap to bottle one part syrup can appreciate this. Now, for the rest of the review.

Vaclav Smil is cock sure he is 100% impartial and fact-based, but the book is basically the crop version of "homo economicus," tallying up the value of plants and animals based solely on things like the author's estimates of photosynthetic efficiency and meat-to-body ratio. (These estimates are next to meaningless in any case because he starts with an estimated average for all cows and plants as though they were all more or less the same individual with the same genetics and similar life conditions.) 

It's a classic case of not being able to see the forest for the trees, except that — not seeing the forest and not having any first-hand knowledge of trees or those who plant them — he trundles blindly ahead with an argument that implies we wouldn't need real trees, forests or farmers if we could just manufacture them because the reproduction of both trees and farmers is so inefficient.

He seems completely ignorant of anything more complex than simple statistics, and as we know 23% of statistics are made up and all the rest are oversimplifications. He seems to lack knowledge of even basic relationships between soil, bacteria, fungi, grass, and cows. He names his two academic opponents in the topic of agriculture as Jared Diamond and James C. Scott (a pop author of history who cut his academic chops arguing sbout island bird populations and a political scientist and anthropologist, respectively), at whom he quickly jeers before dismissing them as trying to sell their ideas (forgetting perhaps that Smil himself also makes a living selling his ideas). He doesn't mention anyone else with actual experience in farming, ranching,  practicing land management, or studying ecology (of which he seems to have none), and he starts with the assumption that civilization requires infinite human population growth. 

For a reference of his value system, he states its a shame so many children are malnourished because it affects the economy. 😶 He also seems to think that the reason for malnourishment in Africa (not to mention malnourishment in North America) is not enough chemical input purchased from Europe, China, and the US. I would love to see him talk to somebody actually involved in farmers' rights like Vandana Shiva or Rigoberta Menchu or actual ranchers/farmers like Gabe Brown, John Kempf, or Johann Zietsman. It would be a waste of time for these others, except that Smil (again, NOT a food producer and for all I can see with zero training or background in it) for whatever reason seems to have influence over and the support of people with the monetary and political power to affect real farmers, the land and entire populations, like Bill Gates.

He's coming at ecology and food completely from an energy perspective, which is already a terrible approach, but he is also looking at energy non-holistically.

The author's Wikipedia page indicates he has a Masters in Philosophy from 1965 and a PhD in geography from 1971. The son of a rural policeman and a bookkeeper, he refused to join the communist party in Czechoslovakia, so maybe he has some deep-seated anti-rural and anti-hippie trauma, which set him at odds with traditional farmers and modern ecologists. 😂

He keeps saying, "I'm looking at things objectively. I'm not trying to sell anything. I'm a scientist."

My dude... you're trying to sell your book and your views. You're also a "scientist" in that you're a pop author with a 60-year-dated background in philosophy and geography, writing a generalist book about a subject in which you have no apparent academic research experience or practical expertise. That's not how science writing works.

His half-hearted stab at historical contextualization of our current global food system was a brief wave toward the fertile crescent trope without more than a fleeting glance at cultivated foods from places as far from Iraq as the Americas (tomatoes, corn, potatoes, peanuts, casava, squash, etc) or south-east Asia (chickens, bananas, rice, and the spices made famous in Europe by colonization). "10k years ago... agricultural revolution... great legacy inherited by Indo Europeans... bestowed on American colonies... and so here we are today."

He dismisses traditional and regenerative agriculture out of hand because he doesn't understand ecology, farming, or how the financials work out and seems incapable of thinking in terms of systems. At the same time, he turns to a much shakier financial proposition for providing access to food for a population: He hopes that in the future we won't need farms or farmers at all, or at least not ranchers, because all meat and maybe all food will come from proprietary industrial processes. Mmmm... Kraft dinners with 100% less real food... 😬🤢 

Again, he seems unaware of  things like the influence of livestock animals on crop yield in mixed farming. He also doesn't appear to know the difference between old and new carbon, or anything much about carbon and organic matter in soil. An exhaustive discussion of topics critical to real farmers that Smil doesn't even mention would be much longer than his book.

This is a long review because it's important to understand people like Smil with no practical experience in farming, ranching or land management of any kind actually influence policy and funding that affects real farmers, ranchers, and land managers. These effects can be devastating to land health, local populations, and economies, and the effects can be long-lived.

If you want to learn about farming from people who actually know about farming, don't read this book. For a much better, more holistic understanding of land, food and ecology, check out some of the following books:

Various food acquisition traditions:
- The Lifeways of Hunter-Gatherers: The Foraging Spectrum by Robert L. Kelly
- Traditional Plant Foods of Canadian Indigenous Peoples: Nutrition, Botany, and Use by Harrie Kuhnlein and Nancy J. Turner
- Tending the Wild: Native American Knowledge and the Management of California's Natural Resources by M. Kat Anderson

Ranching: 
- Man, Cattle, Veld by Johann Zietsman
- Holistic Management by Allan Savory
- Dirt to Soil: One Family's Journey into Regenerative Agriculture by Gabe Brown and Courtney White

Farming:
- Farmers of Forty Centuries: Organic Farming in China, Korea, and Japan by Franklin Hiram King
- A Call to Farms: Reconnecting to Nature, Food, and Community in the Modern World by Jennifer Grayson
- Farming for the Long Haul by Michael Foley
- Small Farm Republic: Why Conservatives Must Embrace Local Agriculture by John Klar
- Saying NO to a Farm-Free Future: The Case For an Ecological Food System and Against Manufactured Foods by Chris Smaje
- Hit by a Farm: How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Barn by Catherine Friend
- Quality Agriculture by John Kempf

Silviculture/agriforestry:
- Instituting Nature: Authority, Expertise, and Power in Mexican Forests by Andrew S. Mathews
- Tree Crops: A Permanent Agriculture by J. Russell Smith
- Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest by Suzanne Simard
- The Hidden Life of Trees: What The Feel, How They Communicate by Peter Wohlleben
- The Nature of Oaks: The Rich Ecology of Our Most Essential Native Trees by Douglas W. Tallamy
- Our Green Heart: The Soul of Science and Forests by Diana Beresford-Kroeger 

Gardening:
- How to Grow: A Transformative Journey from Gardening to the Soul by Marcus Bridgewater

Human rights and food:
- Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply by Vandana Shiva
- I, Rigoberta Menchu: An Indian Woman from Guatemala by Rigoberta Menchu and Elisabeth Burgos-Debray

Food and culture:
- Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action by Elinor Ostrom
- The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture by Wendell Berry
- All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot
- The Laws and the Land: The Settler Colonial Invasion of Kahnawà:ke in Nineteenth-Century Canada by Daniel Rück
- Against the Grain by James C. Scott

Soil:
- Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations by David R. Montgomery
- Soil Science for Regenerative Agriculture: A Comprehensive Guide to Living Soil by Amelie des Plantes

Permaculture and regenerative farming: 
- Permaculture: Principles and Pathways beyond Sustainability by David Holmgren
- One Straw Revolution by Masanobu Fukuoka
- Restoration Agriculture by Mark Shepard

[Darius Daruvalla-riccio · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book covers a broad topic, making it difficult to review as a whole. However, it does a good job of framing the question practically and working through it in an evidence-based way. The author’s "energy in, energy out" approach, along with considerations of labor, land, water, and fertilizer constraints, feels like the most logical way to tackle the subject.

There is a lot to take in, and this comes through in the seemingly endless list of facts used to support the book’s message. Even so, the author didn’t—and probably couldn’t—consider everything. You could just as easily call this book Why We Can’t Feed the World, and perhaps the most important takeaway is just how complex the issue really is.

[Yosra Ali · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is an in-depth, data-driven, historically guided analysis of food production, eating habits, and their impact on the world. It provides a good introduction to the complexities of food systems, offering a holistic perspective that helps readers enter the field of food production with a sufficient level of details.
One of the book’s most intriguing aspects is its challenge to commonly accepted dietary claims, both regarding their supposed health benefits and their environmental impact. The author examines different food sources, such as pork, chicken, and beef, comparing their production, environmental impact, and cultural appeal. He also critically explores vegetarian and vegan diets, questioning their global feasibility and the real versus perceived benefits of plant-based eating.
For me, the book’s greatest value lies in its ability to falsify widespread claims about what we should eat, what is truly beneficial or harmful to the environment, and how food choices contribute to a better world. Through the author’s calculations and analysis, we gain a fresh perspective on these issues, challenging mainstream narratives.
Moreover, the book’s exploration of food production across different regions is quite strong, including Europe, the U.S., China, and Sub-Saharan Africa. The author explains the unique challenges and opportunities each region faces, and provides tailored insights into how different nations should optimize their food production based on their specific circumstances as well as their contribution to the problem.
In the end, the author’s advocacy for incremental, evidence-based improvements rather than radical changes is thought-provoking. It’s a pragmatic approach that encourages sustainable progress rather than unrealistic (according to the author’s claims) claims.
Against the book, the book’s heavy reliance on so much numerical data is very distracting. There should have been a more refined balance between analysis and readability that could have made the book easier to follow. Some sections could have been eliminated, rewritten, or placed in an appendix as “Resources” to side for the readability.

[Tenaya · Rating 2 out of 5]

Didn’t really learn anything useful - was mostly easy science review or disproving other people’s theories

[Axel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Vaclav Smil positions this work as being a ‘factful guide’. Apparently that means a barrage of individual statistics that are sometimes informative, sometimes cherry picked and combined with interpretations that serve his views. Although he admits it in his predictions at the end, he could have benefited from some epistemic humility throughout this book.

(Also, at different points in the book he applauds the Dutch government’s approach to managing excess nitrogen - I don’t think he’s up to date with our current affairs ;)

[Callum · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was so disappointing, it made me start a Goodreads account. Instead I'd highly recommend the food chapter of There Is No Planet B: A Handbook for the Make or Break Years, in which Mike Berners-Lee delivers an excellent explanation of how to feed the world in only 40 pages, with far more clarity, depth, intellectual rigour, and readability. The two books broadly arrive at similar solutions, but Vaclav Smil's is an unconvincing slog.

For example, both conclude that we should reduce food waste. Berners-Lee shows that food waste happens at different stages of the supply chain in different continents: in Europe and North America a big slice of the pie is household and catering waste, while in Asia and Africa a larger proportion of waste happens at harvest and post-harvest storage. Meanwhile Smil states, without evidence, that "the most significant result would be not putting excessive food supply on the retail market". I've worked in demand forecasting at a supermarket, I know there could be less supply and this is worth pursuing, but it's not 'the most significant' driver. Given that much more food is wasted in homes than in supermarkets, he should have mentioned household solutions such as meal planning, confidence cooking with leftovers, and encouraging people to trust food past the best before date. I wonder if reducing the retail supply significantly would lead to similar levels of food waste in rich households, but more hunger for the poor. The book mostly talks about producing enough food globally, while skimming over the vital issue of distribution and who can afford it.

Another solution in both books is the need to produce less beef.
Berners-Lee gives us a waterfall chart of where calories and protein are lost in the entire global food supply, clearly showing that feeding edible crops to animals is extremely inefficient. He then presents the carbon footprints for a wide range of foods, from the landmark metastudy performed by Poore and Nemecek. These plots have played a big role in helping me understand possible points of intervention in the global food system. On the other hand, Smil only talks about a few different foods, and spreads their relevant numbers across different chapters, making it difficult to compare them.
Again and again, Smil zooms in on a few data points and then extrapolates out wildly, without letting us see the bigger picture. In a book which prides itself on being data-led, it's telling that there's only one plot in the entire book, which is a population graph.

Several times, Smil claims to be completely unbiased and focused on facts, then commits far too many logical fallacies. For example, his arguments against veganism were mostly either appeals to nature ("we're mammals, well suited to mammal milks", ignoring that there are large parts of the world where many people are lactose intolerant) or straw man arguments (veganism is bad because pulses can't be used to make bread???).

Berners-Lee has a subheading 'How can we produce enough food for 9.7 billion of us in 2050?' which concisely lays out 3 different paths we could take to achieve that goal. You might naively expect something like that from a book called How to Feed the World. Ultimately, Smil gives few concrete recommendations. He presents a hazy picture of how things currently are, dismisses almost all forms of change as unimaginable, and then doesn't evaluate how many people the status quo could feed in the future.

This review is already long enough, but let me know if you want to hear a rant about the bizarre chapter in the middle of the book, comparing the GDP of food to smartphones. Or how his weird framing makes it sound as if climate change will be a miracle for agricultural yields.

Sure, there were some good bits, and I learned a few things. He seemed in his element when talking about the history of wheat, which might explain all the straw men elsewhere. Food is such an important topic, you deserve to read something better.

[Conrad · Rating 2 out of 5]

Yes, I liked 'Growth' and I am a numbers-type-of-guy, but more numbers doesn't mean you're 'more' right (or interesting, for that matter). And constantly repeating that you're a 'scientist' and others not, or that that all you do is to 'look at the numbers', doesn't in itself make the argument more compelling.

As one of the weaker books of Vaclav Smil, it does contain interesting facts about our food system, but these interesting parts are too few to compensate for the often boring book. What is even more damning is the fact that the book clearly has a bias, often towards the old and against the new.

For example: Vaclav shows that we won't be able to globally feed ourselves through organic farming by disproving a paper...from 2007. Interesting, but not very convincing (N=1 after all). Vaclav also argues rightly that if the world would go vegan, we would need a more more plant based proteins and that this isn't feasible. But he doesn't discount that fact that about half of the current plant based proteins are fed to animals, and that numerous studies have shown that this is possible. The list goes on

That a book by Vaclav Smil sometimes can be boring, is not a real insult. But once the only self-proclaimed selling point (facts! keeping to the numbers!) crumbles due to a consistent bias, it loses its only selling pint.

[Lucy · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of Bill Gates’ favorite authors, but not mine. This is the second Vaclav Smil book that I’ve read, and likely the last.

[Becca Spritzer · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think I would’ve liked it better if I didn’t listen to it as an audiobook so may go back and reread. Author has well written arguments with strong quantitative back up but felt redundant at points. And probably just not a good book to listen to so dampened my read.

[Justine · Rating 1 out of 5]

Who is this book for? For the casual reader, there is no strong narrative and essentially just a conglomeration of often loosely related facts. For the expert a bland rehashing of what must be commonly known facts about the food system.

[Alexandre Pittet · Rating 4 out of 5]

When Smil comes out with a new book, you buy it! While insightful, I found this one to be slightly less comprehensive and impactful than earlier works!

[Bram · Rating 3 out of 5]

Agriculture is big. It uses 20% of all energy, 36% of all non-glacier land, and 70% of all our water use and its size is often underrepresented in standard economic metric in which it accounts for 1% of GDP in affluent countries.

One of big topic of Smil is energy efficiency. Sadly for food production, at its core, our crops are hopeless energy inefficient as energy captured from the sun is converted in plant mass with <1% efficiency, with sugarcane being the most efficient plant we have. Obviously sugar is not the answer to our growing food needs as its all carbs. Our macro nutritional need is recommended around 50% carbs, 25% fats and 25% protein. In (pre) emerging economies, fats and proteins often fall short in the diet.

Smil explores several avenues how we can feed the planet as we add 2bn additional people (of which 1bn in Africa) to our planet to reach 10bn by 20250. The author believes this can be done. Interestingly, he claims that global warming in theory may help food production as the higher CO2 levels actually help crops be more efficient. This is partially offset by higher temperatures, esp. at lower altitudes this will see yields decline – notably in huge producers such as Brazil and China – which can potentially be offset by shifting planting dates and use more drought tolerant seeds.

Smil is sceptical about several trends such as:

1. Organic farming as this reduces yield by 20-50% and would require more additional land that we have available
2. Cultivating meat as its still not living up to its promise, many technical challenges, high costs (currently at $8.500 per kg) and (still needs much) higher energy needs than conventional meat
3. Replacing the use of synthetic fertilizer with nitrogen-fixing legumes (not enough land) or manure (too expensive to collect such low nutritional value) which also would not solve other macro nutrient needs of potassium and phosphate

Especially in Africa there is massive nitrogen deficit with the lowest levels of fertilizer usage in the world. Nitrogen fertilizer usages would need to increase by 9-15x to meet Africa’s yield potential which can triple the food produced today. Given that half of the increase in population will be in Africa, this is much needed. Fertilizer is the elephant in the room but of course not the only thing required as it needs to be combined with better seeds, access to agronomical information, and increased irrigation. There is a cap to where yields can go in Africa due to its laterite (red) soils which are a bit like porous rocks: good for storing water, but less good in maintaining soil nutrients, acidic, and blocking crops from growing deep roots,

What will work according to Smil:

1. Changing our diets. 30% of our cereals go to animal feed. Smil expects meat to remain a key part of our diets (and especially for certain groups (children, nursing mothers, and elderly) is difficult to replace in terms of nutrient value. The consumption of legume & pulse consumption is actually reducing and a shift towards more nuts and fruits actually would shift a large claim on energy and water use. Our best bet is continue to reduce our meat consumption (Denmark is a leader and already reduced 25% of per capita meat intake since 1992) and shift away from read meat to fish, poultry, and eggs which offer much better feed-to-meat conversion rates.

2. Reduce food waste. Food supply in developed countries (with about 1bn people) is 3.300 calories/day whereas 2200 suffices. Food waste today is 30% and this can be reduced to 10% of ‘unavoidable’ waste levels throug better storage, dynamic pricing at retail level, reduce varieties in supermarket, and reducing portion size.

3. Grow more perennial crops as they use less energy and inputs than seasonal crops and could cover about 20% of our food

4. Precision farming to be more efficient with water and inputs. The costs of these techniques limit its use to food grown in the develop part of the world. In (pre)emerging markets its more cost efficient to improve input efficiency through soil testing, agronomical advice, promoting crop rotation schemes, and introducing better seed varieties

In review, this book is light infotainment on the future of food production. It reads easily, provides a high-level overview of the state of food production, and has some interesting facts. It is rather superficial and falls short on a big topic like the future of GMO.

[Matt Chester · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm a fan of Smil's approach to dissecting and writing on topics-- as he notes in the intro there are many books on food that don't contain numbers, whereas his is teeming with them and he's unapologetic about it. Quote him: "numbers are the antidote to wishful thinking." I love this approach, and it mirrors my way of thinking and writing so I've appreciated Smil for this in the past, and he definitely delivers that here.

Agriculture is how we grow as a population and that has been true over the course of human development, which makes this current moment of 8 billion of us living (and getting older) on the planet so worthy of analysis. He highlights how popular writers, reporters, and non-fiction books highlight that we may be on the precipice of outweighing what we can feed in a population. That's a serious concern, but through his numerical present day (he's clear to highlight he's not here to forecast, as that can be a fool's errand) assessment we are not at risk of a collapsing or overly strained (i.e., beyond our current available tools) food supply. That part of his analysis is reassuring, well researched, and compelling.

Where I did have a problem were as we got into some of the specifics. In debunking myths from other authors, such as the risks of modern white flour or comparisons of hunter-gatherer societies to now, he comes off more smug than is necessary. Being dismissive and showing such disdain feels antithetical to the previously mentioned numerical approach. And because in these types of instances he seems to assume the reader is already on his side, he breezes by them rather than dives into analyzing them as well.

Among my biggest peeves with this book comes as a reader who also happens to be (looks around and says quietly so no one rolls their eyes too loudly) a vegan. I found that he too quickly and condescendingly punted on the hard questions about the ethics of the meat industry, as well as dairy and eggs. He leans on some classic tropes (we evolved to be omnivorous! Why would vegans dismiss all cheese when I show here an example of an exotic goat shepherd who makes artisan cheese to his well kept flock?) and notably does not choose to look into any of the hard questions here with his analytical lens. The 'but we evolved to do so and so' argument holds no weight in a modern society that leans against the evolutionary foundations that didn't have medicine, that bred and accepted human-to-human violence, etc. And when analyzing what it would mean if we shifted to a less meat-heavy diet, he simply hand waves and says people wouldn't want to do that. In doing so he seemingly speaks counter to one of his main points that big changes happen through small shifts-- many vegans of the world aren't advocating for the banning of non-vegan diets (something he ignorantly seems to claim), but making small shifts and displacing the centrality of meat to diets is something worth talking about (and not via mandates). But his analysis looks at a world eating vegan vs. current state to dismiss the addressing of the environmental issues animal-based foods creates (issues he wholly acknowledges).

Vegan tirade over, and if I haven't lost you there, I will just reiterate that this is just the example that felt strongest and most personal to me. Throughout the book there are moments where it feels like he has gone in with an intended conclusions and he emphasizes those respective numbers and doesn't necessarily dig into the ones that would challenge that. But he does show his work and careful reading can bring you to agree or disagree with certain points.

I do, overall, appreciate his standard approach of cautious skepticism. But at the same time, I'm more willing than Smil to leave room for moonshot tech advances to happen. And again his final message is one that is well supported: the data shows our food supplies will be fine and should continue to do so until the mid century at least. But hey-- let's really cut back on food waste (something everyone an agree on and his focus here in the last chapter are numbers and conclusions worth dog-earing for future reference!).

[Angelica · Rating 1 out of 5]

Lo avrei abbandonato dopo le prime 20 pagine se non mi fossi costretta a finirlo per comprendere le conclusioni a cui l’autore sarebbe arrivato. Ancora una volta il mio istinto aveva ragione: un’accozzaglia di statistiche e numeri elaborati a dovere per ottenere proprio i risultati di cui Mr. Svil aveva bisogno a sostegno delle sue idee.

È sicuramente più facile dire che le uniche e più realistiche soluzioni per poter sostenere la domanda di cibo di una popolazione mondiale in continua crescita - cercando di ridurre l’impatto ambientale - saranno quelle di diminuire il consumo di carne di manzo aumentando il consumo di pesce, pollo, maiale e derivati e di provare a ridurre lo spreco alimentare lungo tutto la filiera.

Concordo che sarà impossibile convertire il mondo intero verso una dieta vegana, ma dire di non mangiare carne rossa e poi abusare di carne bianca e derivati, sostenendo che le fonti proteiche animali siano le uniche che permettano di non compromettere la saluta umana, è davvero assurdo, non solamente da un punto di vista di concreta riduzione della propria impronta di carbonio quanto soprattutto da un punto di vista nutrizionale (diversi studi e paper scientifici ormai hanno sfatato questo mito e sono favorevoli ad una dieta vegetale, se ben bilanciata e integrata), ignorando del tutto che carni rosse e processate sono state classificate cancerogene di tipo 1 dalla WHO. La risposta sarebbe piuttosto optare verso una dieta quanto più vegetale possibile, riducendo il consumo di tutti i tipi di carne e derivati ad un pasto al giorno.

Quanto inoltre saranno davvero sostenibili nel lungo periodo le proposte di Mr. Smil? La risposta non può essere solamente individuale, ma a mio avviso serve lo sforzo di tutti, che anche i Governi si impegnino per garantire la transizione: educare la popolazione ad una alimentazione vegana/vegetariana, investire in ricerca e sviluppo per accelerare le nuove tecniche di agricoltura perenne (eg Kernza), carne coltivata, alternative agli attuali fertilizzanti al nitrogeno, sostegno agli Stati dell’Africa (dove si realizzerà nei prossimi 50 anni l’incremento demografico più significativo) per permettere il “controllo delle nascite”.

Dire infine che il cambiamento climatico porterà non solo effetti negativi ma avrà anche benefici è del tutto surreale. Significa negare che serve provare a fare tutto il possibile per invertire la rotta. Il mondo riuscirà ad adattarsi - ne sono sicura - ma a quale costo?

[Mohamed Alkhazendar محمد الخازندار · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author is using a scientific approach to dig deep into the question of how to have enough food for a growing planet population. From this question, he challenges many ideas, in terms of their scalability. New technologies, climate change solutions, and even eating diets, for ideological or health reasons alike. Can we all turn into planet based diet? Will we have enough food for everyone? This way of putting things into perspective, use numbers and show what can work and what can’t work was a good mind exercise. He rightly discussed the food problem, from a collective point of view, rather than an individual, personal choice, or responsibility approach that usually takes over the conversation. I still found some parts were over detailed, or not serving the current point of discussion or current argument in hand.

[Simon Tudge · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really fascinating stuff. I like how he kept the discipline to keep this book to a reasonable snappy 200 pages, and got through the basic foundational ideas of the topic.

On the negative side there's maybe a tendency to be a bit dismissive of anything that he labels as radical, and at times I got a little bit overwhelmed with a barrage of numbers and facts. Not only are we told the facts, but we're told that the author favours facts to opinions. Sometimes this isn't necessary; tell us what you think, don't tell us that people who don't think that are stupid or wrong, and no to make an empirical statement and then declare that it's a fact.

But the irritations of this book are forgivable. All told, this has my seal of approval.

[Alyssa · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5⭐️
I appreciated a lot of aspects about this book and the wealth of topics/ideas explored. However, I feel many were touched upon in much more shallow depth than others. It almost felt as if the author were using buzzwords to appear as though he is well-educated and well-versed on a wide array of themes. It sometimes came off that he’d dive deeper when he could provide evidence on why one ideology or innovation was incorrect, but spent little time offering evidence as to precisely how others would be positively impactful. At times, he brought up points, only to move onto the next topic and disregard what he had said. Were this a philosophy book, I would view this as reasonable, but he consciously spent time to repeat throughout his book that he is only focused on the facts.
For readers already decently well-versed on this topic, I’m not sure if there is much to learn. However, I can see the potential in recommending this book to someone outside of the environmental sphere.

[Esperanza Navarro · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lots of statistics including the chemical breakdown of photosynthesis. Not what I was expecting but in some ways the book was fascinating, in other ways it was very dry. While it seemed very well researched I think he missed some important points - I wished he delved deeper into the entire industry of harvesting food and the corruptions/problems within.

Still, it was interesting. Mostly.

[Christopher Ch · Rating 4 out of 5]

As someone outside the field, I found this book more technical and complex than I expected. Still, I stayed with it and gained a lot from the experience, including what felt like a much-needed refresher in chemistry.

What stood out most was the idea of viewing nutrition through the lens of energy efficiency. This perspective made the reasoning feel more straightforward and less emotional, which is often where nutrition debates tend to go off track.

The conclusions are optimistic. Change is possible, even if it takes time. The book makes a strong case that science remains our most reliable ally in that journey.

[Daniel · Rating 1 out of 5]

I appreciate the very thorough research into facts, especially when nutrition science and that of agriculture can feel so complicated and at times feel full of pseudoscience.

However, this feels more like an encyclopedia than a book with any real arguments. I wish that was clearer before starting the book. Arguments were not clear or structured in a normal fashion, and when they were finally provided, they contained nothing extraordinary, but the usual “eat more greens, less meat” and “it’s complicated and will take time to improve”.

[Clau · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not a light topic to read and a bit grim at times. However it does shine a light into the reality of food systems from context , industries and challenging what the future holds. The author does a great job explaining the context and data while keeping the book interesting to those who are by no means experts in the subject.

[Derek Ouyang · Rating 4 out of 5]

My research lab has worked on CAFOs, methane estimation, and aquaculture, and it's all here and much more.

[Uros · Rating 5 out of 5]

Insightful read, like all of Smils books. Energy and Civilization, and Power Density primer are still his best to me. But as someone who works in agriculture, that is, plant breeding (biotech), the book gives great insights into our food system. My only criticism - would have liked to see more on the productivity gains brought about via plant breeding over the last century and the potential of plant breeding for the future.

[Mimi Tran · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall a pretty optimistic read, crammed full of statistics. Enjoyed the thought experiments around whether or not veganism or vegetarianism are suitable for the global population. Wished the discussion on efficiency vs. ethics of Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations was twice as long.