The planet is taking a hit from unsustainable industrial agriculture

Have you ever considered how much energy it takes to get food from the farm to your table? Or how many miles the food has traveled to reach you? These are two of the questions raised by Dale Allen Pfeiffer in Eating Fossil Fuels, a ringing indictment of industrial agriculture.

One reason Pfeiffer condemns industrial agriculture as unsustainable is the imminent arrival of Peak Oil, i.e. global peak of oil production, which some people believe is already here. Peak Oil, which Pfeiffer described well in his previous book, The End of the Oil Age, signals the beginning of the decline of the petrochemical sources of modern pesticides, fertilizers and mechanized farming. But, in Eating Fossil Fuels, Pfeiffer goes beyond Peak Oil to condemn industrial agriculture, and its partner in crime, globalization, for soil degradation, water degradation, overpopulation, overconsumption, and the destruction of local agriculture.

Pfeiffer calls for worldwide agrarian reform based on local, organic farming. The book contrasts the experiences of Cuba and North Korea, both of which faced sudden loss of energy supplies as a result of the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Cuban example raises hope that local organic farming can sustain even urban populations, while North Korea