Farmageddon

The true cost of cheap meat

Philip Lymbery with Isabel Oakeshott, Bloomsbury Publishing, 448 pages, paperback, £12.99

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.

The book argues that 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% in the US) are routinely given to industrially farmed animals, contributing to the emergence of deadly antibiotic-resistant superbugs.

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. Meanwhile, cereals that could feed billions are given to animals.

The authors show how enormous waste underpins the mega-farming model: while food prices rocket and surplus food is thrown away. 

A fascinating and terrifying investigative journey behind the closed doors of a runaway industry, the book 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.

Reviews contributed by the Bookmarks socialist bookshop. Order online at www.bookmarksbookshop.co.uk