I would like to mention a particularly interesting article on this subject in the New Yorker: "The Last Bite: Is the world’s food system collapsing?" by Bee Wilson. In this article, Wilson discusses several books: The End of Food by Paul Roberts; Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System by Raj Patel, Bottomfeeder: How to Eat Ethically in a World of Vanishing Seafood by Taras Grescoe, and In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto by Michael Pollan.
A few quotes from Wilson's article:
"The world seemed to have been liberated from a Malthusian 'long night of hunger and drudgery.' Now the 'dark tints' have returned. The World Bank recently announced that thirty-three countries are confronting food crises, as the prices of various staples have soared. From January to April of this year, the cost of rice on the international market went up a hundred and forty-one per cent. Pakistan has reintroduced ration cards. In Egypt, the Army has started baking bread for the general population. The Haitian Prime Minister was ousted after hunger riots. The current crisis could push another hundred million people deeper into poverty."
"All of these authors agree that the entire system of Western food production is in need of radical change, right down to the spinach. Roberts opens with a description of E.-coli-infected spinach from California.... Industrial farming means that even those on a vegan diet may reap the nastier effects of intensive meat production. It is no longer enough for individuals to switch to 'healthier' choices in the supermarket. Schlosser asked his readers to consider the chain of consequences they set in motion every time they sit down to eat in a fast-food outlet. Roberts wants us to consider the 'chain of transactions and reactions' represented by each of our food purchases—'by each ripe melon or freshly baked bagel, by each box of cereal or tray of boneless skinless chicken breasts.' This time, we are all implicated."
"So, yes, cheap food can be nasty, not to mention bad for farmers and the environment. Yet it has one great advantage that neither Patel nor Roberts fully grapples with: people can afford to buy it. According to the World Bank, four hundred million fewer people were living in extreme poverty in 2004 than was the case in 1981, in large part owing to the affordability of basic foodstuffs. The current food crises are the result of food being too expensive to buy, rather than too cheap. The rioters of Haiti would kill for a plate of affordable chicken, no matter how pale, soft, and exudative. The battle against cheap food involves harder tradeoffs than Patel and Roberts allow. No one has yet discovered how to raise prices for the overfed rich without squeezing the underfed poor."
Read it! Weeping optional.