Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development

ISSN: 2152-0801 online

https://foodsystemsjournal.org

The myth of “feeding the world”:

Subsidizing agricultural overproduction
and industrial technologies, and
marginalizing alternatives

Book review by
Philip H. Howard *
Michigan State University

Review of The Agricultural Dilemma: How Not to Feed the

World, by Glenn Davis Stone. (2022). Published by
Earthscan, an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group.
Available as hardcover, paperback, and e-book; 246
pages. Publisher’s website:
https://www.routledge.com/The-Agricultural-
Dilemma-How-Not-to-Feed-the-
World/Stone/p/book/9781032260457

Submitted April 11, 2023 / Revised April 19, 2023 / Published online May 1, 2023

Citation: Howard, P. H. (2023). The myth of “feeding the world”: Subsidizing agricultural overproduction
and industrial technologies, and marginalizing alternatives [Book review]. Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems,
and Community Development, 12(3), 259–260. https://doi.org/10.5304/jafscd.2023.123.008

Copyright © 2023 by the Author. Published by the Lyson Center for Civic Agriculture and Food Systems. Open access under CC BY license.

H ow many times have you heard some version

of the phrase “we need to produce more
food to feed a growing population”—often
If you’re reading this journal, it’s probably in
the thousands, if not more. In this book, Glenn
Davis Stone dismantles such claims and shows
attached to impressively precise estimates of the who is really benefiting from their constant repe-
percentage increases and specific dates far into the tition (hint: it’s not most of us). He suggests a
future? description of a problem that should be widely
repeated instead: overproduction due to massive
* Philip H. Howard is Professor of Community Sustainability government subsidies—particularly for input
at Michigan State University and a member of the Inter- industries—is leading to the runaway industriali-
national Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES- zation of agriculture and its numerous negative
Food). He has a background in rural sociology and is the
impacts.
author of Concentration and Power in the Food System: Who Controls
What We Eat? (Bloomsbury Academic, 2015 and 2021). He Stone is an anthropologist with more than four
can be contacted at the Department of Community Sustaina- decades of experience studying past and present
bility, Michigan State University; 480 Wilson Road, Room 316; food systems. He has conducted ethnographic and
East Lansing, MI 48824 USA; [email protected]. archeological research in locations that include

Volume 12, Issue 3 / Spring 2023 259

 Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development
ISSN: 2152-0801 online
https://foodsystemsjournal.org

Nigeria, southern India, the Philippines, and the impacts of producing excessive amounts of corn,
U.S. He explains that his motivations for writing and then disposing of it by burning it as ethanol.
this book include the marginalization of small- Fertilizer and seed industries are described as
holder farmers by powerful interests, and the the core drivers of industrial agriculture, as well as
limited efforts to date to communicate research on having the biggest “halo,” which helps protect
the political ecological advantages of this scale of them from valid criticisms. Stone details the
agriculture to wider audiences. increasing flows of farmer payments to heavily
He examines the history of Malthusian thought subsidized fertilizer, seed, pesticide, irrigation, and
with fascinating details of the lives of Thomas machinery firms, as well as the credit required to
Robert Malthus and his followers, who incorrectly make these purchases.
blamed the poor for their hunger and frequently The Green Revolution receives particular
concluded that interventions in food and popula- emphasis. Stone suggests that this legend conceals
tion dynamics were unnecessary. This perspective the truth that it “didn’t feed anybody who would
had catastrophic implications for millions of have otherwise starved. It was not even intended to
people in Ireland and India in the late 1800s, who produce more food than would have been produced
were subjected to starvation based on this philos- otherwise, just more fertilized, irrigated, and pesti-
ophy even as tons of export crops from these cide-sprayed wheat as opposed to low-input rice,
regions continued to flow to England. sorghum, and healthy legumes” (p. 9). Support for
Stone agrees with Malthus that we should his perspective comes from India, which is cur-
focus on the drivers of increasing agricultural pro- rently the world’s leading exporter of rice and beef,
duction, but says that, “In a sense, Malthus had the and where in 2000, a parliamentary committee
causal arrow backward; agriculture did not deter- proposed dumping rotting grain surpluses into the
mine population, but population determined agri- ocean to make room for new harvests. My favorite
culture” (p. 12). Farming that makes intensive use part of the book is when he demolishes Aaron
of labor and local technologies (and is less reliant Sorkin’s character President Jed Bartlet in the
on external inputs) tends to be highly innovative insipid television drama The West Wing, who parrots
and flexible, and capable of achieving much higher the legend of the Green Revolution, as “the classic
productivity when necessary. tale of how we find a way to attribute productivity
Industrial Neo-Malthusian thought is analyzed to a piece of technology in the farmer’s field rather
in even more detail by the author because it has than to the external resources and policies that
had an enormous influence on society in recent actually cause change” (p. 163).
decades. Embodied most perfectly by “Green Stone’s writing is clear, concise, and engaging.
Revolution hero” Norman Borlaug, Neo-Malthu- He synthesizes an impressive range of critical
sians are more willing to intervene in food and scholarship, interspersed with his own fascinating
population dynamics and to promote the dogma of research findings. The index is much less compre-
industrial technologies as a means of increasing hensive than I would prefer, but the accessibility of
food production (p. 45). In practice, this has meant electronic versions that are searchable by keyword
seeking public funding for input industries, which makes this almost a moot point.
has enabled the appropriation of on-farm pro- This book would make an excellent supple-
cesses by large industries and decreased farmers’ mentary text in a graduate or upper-level under-
self-reliance. This, in turn, has resulted in overpro- graduate food systems course. In addition, it
duction and additional costs to society and eco- should be read by every scholar and activist work-
systems. These costs can be divided into those that ing on challenging the false premise that increas-
are direct, such as for storing massive grain and ing yields are the sine qua non of food system
dairy surpluses, and indirect, such as the embodied change.

260 Volume 12, Issue 3 / Spring 2023