Saying NO to a farm-free future, reviewed

We look at the latest book by Chris Smaje, Saying NO to a Farm-Free Future The Case For an Ecological Food System and Against Manufactured Foods, Published by Chelsea Green Publishing, see more here.

Saying NO to a farm-free future, reviewed

This book is a response to George Monbiot’s own book about how humanity could feed itself in the future. While GM had some interesting ideas, Smaje’s concern is that the solutions suggested are leaning too heavily on a techno-solutionist approach, and the concept that we can only be saved by the tech-bros. There is some truth in this critique, or rather it is important to look at a wider range of solutions, and to not be solely dependent on what Silicon Valley and other tech startups might have to offer.

As we see what has become the utter gong show since Twitter got a new owner, we need to be looking at more solutions that just whatever the latest tech trends might be. The potential for any solely tech dependent solutions has recently proved to be an invitation to descend into hubris and chaos if we are not careful.

Smaje’s analysis and arguments are carefully reasoned and walked through. We would not necessarily agree with everything suggested in this book, but Smaje does argue reasonably and with the intent to be fair and draw on legitimate sources. This book is definitely thought provoking, even if we found the title a bit clunky. We liked it, and would recommend reading it.

See more on Chris’s blog here.

In Chris’s words ->

I wrote the book in a two-month blur as a job of work that I felt somebody had to do to combat the head of steam building around the case for a farm-free future associated with George Monbiot’s book Regenesis and the Reboot Food initiative. And if that somebody was me, so be it.

My original motivation was mainly just to critique the fanciful ecomodernism of Reboot Food, which I believe is apt to bedazzle people of goodwill but with limited knowledge of food and farming into thinking that a technological solution is at hand that will enable them to continue living high-energy, urban consumerist lifestyles while going easy on the climate and the natural world. Really, it isn’t. The danger is that farm-free bromides will, as usual with ecomodernism, instil a ‘great, they’ve fixed it!’ complacency at just the time when we need to jettison the techno-fix mentality and radically reimagine our social and political assumptions.

More about the book

One of the few voices to challenge The Guardian‘s George Monbiot on the future of food and farming (and the restoration of nature) is academic, farmer and author of A Small Farm Future Chris Smaje. In Saying NO to a Farm-Free Future, Smaje presents his defense of small-scale farming and a robust critique of Monbiot’s vision for an urban and industrialized future.

Responding to Monbiot’s portrayal of an urban, high-energy, industrially manufactured food future as the answer to our current crises, and its unchallenged acceptance within the environmental discourse, Smaje was compelled to challenge Monbiot’s evidence and conclusions. At the same time, Smaje presents his powerful counterargument – a low-carbon agrarian localism that puts power in the hands of local communities, not high-tech corporates.

In the ongoing fight for our food future, this book will help you to understand the difference between a congenial, ecological living and a dystopian, factory-centered existence. A must-read!

“Chris Smaje has laid down an indictment – as unremitting as it is undeniable – that cuts through the jargon-filled, techno-worshipping agricultural futurists who promise silver-bullet fixes for having your cake and eating it too. This brilliant and compelling book is at once hopeful and persuasive about the future of food.”—Dan Barber, chef at Blue Hill and author of The Third Plate

See more book reviews here.