Vaclav Smil: The future of food in the age of less
World hunger and obesity, dwindling resources and food waste, extensive farming and polluted seas: the future of the food supply is giving cause for concern. Our level of consumption is harming our health and environment. We are demanding ever more of the same – an economic course that can only end badly.
Ecological solutions for Nature, economic measures for industry? A silo mentality is not the answer. Food has become a highly complex system involving innumerable players. Those who want to change it need to understand the broad picture.
Vaclav Smil is one who does. The Canadian polymath scholar is an independent, interdisciplinary and fearless thinker. Though he has published over 30 books and 400 essays, he has, until recently, been an insider tip. Now Bill Gates has outed himself as an admirer: "I'm trying to read everything he writes".
In his analysis of the future of food, Smil combines topics such as energy, ecology, demography, food production, technology, risk assessment and politics. "Harvesting the Biosphere" (2013) is his fascinating survey of solutions that range from vegetarianism to genetic engineering. Smil will discuss the best and most surprising of these at the GDI, giving us a global perspective on the future of food in the Age of Less.
