The Fate of Food ― What We'll Eat in a Bigger, Hotter, Smarter World

In this fascinating look at the race to secure the global food supply, environmental journalist and professor Amanda Little tells the defining story of the sustainable food revolution as she weaves together stories from the world's most creative and controversial innovators on the front lines of food science, agriculture, and climate change.

Climate models predict that global food production will decline every decade for the rest of this century due to drought, heat, and flooding. With water and food shortages looming globally, the search for new methods of supplying water and food is on. The Fate of Food connects the categories of food science, innovation, and climate change to tell the defining story of the sustainable food revolution that aims to feed 9 billion people in a hotter, smarter world.
From dairy farms in India where microchips embedded in cow flanks transmit real-time data about the animals' health and milk quality to the fields of Nigerian farmers who are growing the world's first drought-tolerant rice, The Fate of Food tells the story of human innovation through food, examining both old and new approaches to food production and their costs and benefits in an era of climate change. Amanda Little, environmental journalism professor at Vanderbilt University, seeks to answer questions such as: Can GMOs actually be good for the environment? What are the most sustainable, long-term sources of protein? What would it take to eliminate harmful chemicals from farming and processed foods? Her investigation takes her to the most extreme frontiers of modern food production and tells the stories of the most creative and controversial innovators, such as the engineering whiz who grew up on a farm in Peru and later developed robots that can weed and manage pests on crops, or the chemical engineer who developed membranes that can transform ocean brine and even sewage into hyper-pure drinking water. Along the journey, readers will gain a deeper understanding of climate change, as well as a sense of awe and optimism about the scope of human ingenuity--and the hope that a solution is on the horizon.

AMANDA LITTLE teaches investigative journalism and creative nonfiction at Vanderbilt University, where she is a writer-in-residence in the English department. She went to Brown University and has been working in online media since 1996. Little has published interviews with public figures ranging from Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John Kerry to John McCain and Rupert Murdoch. She serves on the board of trustees at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee.