Aimed at the army of advocates, activists, and policymakers engaged with food and agricultural politics, [Nicoletta] Batini hopes that The Economics of Sustainable Foodย can help โdesign sound public policy strategiesโ to achieve a sustainable relationship between food, economics, and the climate.
The bookโs four main sectionsโโGreening Food Supply,โ โGreening Food Demand,โ โGreening Food Waste,โ and โConserving Land and Sea to Support Food Securityโโeach contains contributions from multiple authors, including developmental economists, agronomists, activists, and nonprofit leaders.
The breadth of voices explains the array of positions staked out in the book. But even within the perspectives of individual authors there can be a sense of confusion and fuzzy thinking.
For example, Batini calls for a wholesale shift from conventional farming (high-yield commercial agriculture that involves inputs such as synthetic fertilizers and pesticides) to organic and regenerative farming, without fully defining what she means by regenerative.
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In the same chapter, she advocates for rewilding and reforesting land that has been used for agriculture. These two ideas may in fact be in direct opposition:ย organic agriculture on average produces lower yields than conventional farming, meaning that organic farmers would require more land to produce the same amount of food.
How can agricultural land be returned to a more wild state if farmers end up needing more land for agricultural production?
