As we continue menu/kitchen-testing at 51, we confront daily the question of how much meat we want to offer guests, how to source it ethically, and how to improve our vegetarian options. This book has generated considerable food for thought, so to speak. March 27 at 4pm, during the Oxford Literary Festival, co-author of the book Farmageddon, which is reviewed here and here, will be speaking for one hour. Wish we could attend. If you can and do, please send video or notes:
The chief executive of Compassion in World Farming Philip Lymbery uncovers the trend towards mega-farming that he says is threatening our countryside, farms and food. He says farm animals have been disappearing from our fields as food production becomes a global industry. And the recent horsemeat scandal demonstrates that we no longer know for certain what is entering the food chain. Lymbery collaborated with Sunday Times journalist Isabel Oakesott onFarmageddon, an investigation into mega-farming that ranges from the UK to Europe, the USA, China, Argentina, Peru and Mexico.
Lymbery is a lifelong wildlife enthusiast. Under his leadership, Compassion in World Farming has won the Observer Ethical Award for Campaigner of the Year and BBC Radio 4 Food and Farming awards for Best Campaigner and Educator.
The book’s publisher has this to say about it:
About Farmageddon
Farm animals have been disappearing from our fields as the production of food has become a global industry. We no longer know for certain what is entering the food chain and what we are eating – as the UK horsemeat scandal demonstrated. We are reaching a tipping point as the farming revolution threatens our countryside, health and the quality of our food wherever we live in the world.
* Our health is under threat: half of all antibiotics used worldwide (rising to 80 per cent in US) are routinely given to industrially farmed animals, contributing to the emergence of deadly antibiotic-resistant superbugs
* Wildlife is being systematically destroyed: bees are now trucked across the States (and even airfreighted from Australia) to pollinate the fruit trees in the vast orchards of California, where a chemical assault has decimated the wild insect population
* Fresh fish are being hoovered from the oceans: fish that could feed local populations are being turned into fishmeal for farmed fish, chickens and pigs thousands of miles away
* Cereals that could feed billions of people are being given to animals: soya and grain that could nourish the world’s poorest, are now grown increasingly as animal fodder
* Epidemic waste underpins the mega-farming model: while food prices rocket, surplus food is thrown away
Farmageddon is a fascinating and terrifying investigative journey behind the closed doors of a runaway industry across the world – from the UK, Europe and the USA, to China, Argentina, Peru and Mexico. It is both a wake-up call to change our current food production and eating practices and an attempt to find a way to a better farming future.
Organikos 