Feeding People is Easy
by Colin Tudge
Pari Publishing ₤9.99. 190 pages
FT bookshop price: ₤7.99

Of all science fiction’s apocalypses, John Christopher’s 1956 The Death of Grass is one of the most haunting. Its premise - a virus that wipes out the world’s grasses, and hence most cereal crops - is simple; its account of the ensuing disaster gripping. As a reminder of the awful necessity of the things one takes for granted, it is hard to beat.

Christopher’s novel came strongly to mind as I read some of the gloomier passages of Colin Tudge’s new book. This was not because these passages seemed like science fiction - there is, after all, enough eco-anxiety around at the moment to make all but the direst predictions seem routine - but because of their stark emphasis on the perils of taking food for granted.

The high-technology, large-scale model of agriculture that has become so common in the west puts us, Tudge says, in a risky position. Vast monoculture prairies, requiring careful dosing with pesticides and fertiliser, are uniquely vulnerable to disease and the vagaries of climate change. The ”value-adding” ploys of the middlemen who then buy the produce - ploys such as feeding cereals to cattle, because the return on meat is higher - diminish its potential to feed a growing population. We have taken to treating agriculture as a business like any other, and lost sight of its crucial importance to civilisation.

Yet Tudge, a prolific writer of pop biology and ecology, is no pessimist. Indeed, he has great faith in human goodness and ingenuity. Feeding People is Easy is his prescription for the planet.

What we must do, he says, is to adopt what he calls ”enlightened agriculture”. This means traditional mixed farming. With minimal mechanisation and use of artificial chemicals, such farms are more efficient - in terms of energy inputs and outputs - than modern high-tech farms. By joyous coincidence, the output of an enlightened farm closely matches the ideal input of the healthy human: ”plenty of plants, not much meat and maximum variety”. This mix in turn is the basis of the world’s great traditional cuisines; feeding people can indeed be easy. And because enlightened agriculture is labour-intensive, it gives people something more worthwhile to do than crowding up mega-cities.

Perhaps surprisingly, Tudge describes himself as a capitalist. His, though, is the enlightenment capitalism of Adam Smith and Thomas Jefferson, in which competition is mitigated by moral sentiments and altruism. He distinguishes this from the devil-take-the-hindmost variety that prevails today. According to Tudge, the only way to overcome this malign ideology is to circumvent it - by producers and consumers who co-operate until enlightened agriculture attains critical mass.

This is a readable, compelling book - which is just as well, given the extravagance of its thesis. Tudge is a skilful writer, though he slides too easily into the hectoring cliche: there’s a sort of manic bitterness in his constant references to ”the powers that be”. He is, however, careful not categorically to damn all businessmen, politicians and aspects of progress.

If, scanning the supermarket shelves, you see the Kenyan mange tout and Peruvian asparagus as happy evidence of the workings of comparative advantage, the chances are that you will regard Tudge as a wrong-headed utopian. If, on the other hand, you see something grotesque in these globe-trotting delicacies, his philosophy of food should go a long way to articulating your unease.