A bad habit they can't give up

摘要

It is hard to get a grip on food. The un's World Health Organisation worries about diminishing supplies and increased prices in poor countries; recent riots and near-riots in Haiti, Bangladesh and Egypt were sparked by the growing cost of wheat and rice. But, as Paul Roberts observes in "The End of Food", the developed world has lived through "a near miraculous period during which the things we ate seemed to grow only more plentiful, more secure, more nutritious, and simply better." In the second half of the 20th century, world output of corn, wheat and cereal crops more than tripled. Yet there is not enough to feed the rich, the aspirational and the poor in the world. A golden age has been transformed quite suddenly into a global crisis.