Paperback, 352 pages
English language
Published June 27, 2022 by Penguin Books, Limited.
Farming is the world's greatest cause of environmental destruction - and the one we are least prepared to talk about. We criticise urban sprawl, but farming sprawls across thirty times as much land. We have ploughed, fenced and grazed great tracts of the planet, felling forests, killing wildlife, and poisoning rivers and oceans to feed ourselves. Yet millions still go hungry.
Now the food system itself is beginning to falter. But, as George Monbiot shows us in this brilliant, bracingly original new book, there is another way.
Regenesis is a breathtaking vision of a new future for food and for humanity. Drawing on astonishing advances in soil ecology, Monbiot reveals how new discoveries about the world beneath our feet could allow us to grow more food with less farming, and transform our relationship with the living planet. He meets the people who are unlocking these methods, from the fruit and …
Farming is the world's greatest cause of environmental destruction - and the one we are least prepared to talk about. We criticise urban sprawl, but farming sprawls across thirty times as much land. We have ploughed, fenced and grazed great tracts of the planet, felling forests, killing wildlife, and poisoning rivers and oceans to feed ourselves. Yet millions still go hungry.
Now the food system itself is beginning to falter. But, as George Monbiot shows us in this brilliant, bracingly original new book, there is another way.
Regenesis is a breathtaking vision of a new future for food and for humanity. Drawing on astonishing advances in soil ecology, Monbiot reveals how new discoveries about the world beneath our feet could allow us to grow more food with less farming, and transform our relationship with the living planet. He meets the people who are unlocking these methods, from the fruit and vegetable grower who is revolutionising our understanding of fertility; through breeders of perennial grains, liberating the land from ploughs and poisons; to the scientists pioneering new ways to grow protein and fat. Together, they show how the tiniest life forms could help us resolve the biggest of our dilemmas: how to feed the world without devouring the planet.
Here, for the first time, is a thrilling vision of abundant, cheap and healthy food, which could trigger a shift as profound as the invention of agriculture. Here is a new cuisine that would let us make peace with the planet, restore its living systems, and replace the age of extinction with an age of regenesis.
Regenesis manages to find beauty and hope within its grim subject matter. It struck a chord with me and left a lasting impression, offering a thoughtful and balanced exploration of challenging themes.
Regenesis is a book of two halves. The first half, which explores the state of global food production and gives particular attention to the health of the soil, is absolutely terrifying. The second half discovers possible solutions to the man-made farming crisis and does offer some hope, albeit probably too little, too late unless serious systemic change happens within the next couple of years. George Monbiot is a passionate writer so his book is as gripping as a good novel, but with the unsettling realisation that he is talking about our planet and the imminent end of its stable food supply. It's a huge concept to get one's head around and even for someone like myself who already considers themselves pretty clued up on the topic, there was a lot in these pages for me learn - and wring my hands over.
Monbiot begins by discussing soil - what it …
Regenesis is a book of two halves. The first half, which explores the state of global food production and gives particular attention to the health of the soil, is absolutely terrifying. The second half discovers possible solutions to the man-made farming crisis and does offer some hope, albeit probably too little, too late unless serious systemic change happens within the next couple of years. George Monbiot is a passionate writer so his book is as gripping as a good novel, but with the unsettling realisation that he is talking about our planet and the imminent end of its stable food supply. It's a huge concept to get one's head around and even for someone like myself who already considers themselves pretty clued up on the topic, there was a lot in these pages for me learn - and wring my hands over.
Monbiot begins by discussing soil - what it actually is and the millions of tiny creatures who live there. This part is fascinating as, in common with many people I imagine, I rarely give much thought to the soil under my feet unless it's too muddy to hike across. It turns out the soil pretty much everywhere is in a worryingly poor state of health, mostly due to farming excesses - too many chemicals, too much intensive monocropping, too many animals. I was reminded of Lenore Newman's book, Lost Feast, in the way that human arrogance is again destroying the natural world to our own cost because we think we know best. Monbiot provides a dense flurry of facts and figures all demonstrating the imminent crisis and, by the time I had absorbed even a third of them, I was close to tears. Regenesis is a hard-hitting book and goodness knows it needs to be, but I did wonder if readers would be driven to abandon it despondently before they got to the good news.
Regenesis isn't just about what is being destroyed, but also offers several different visions of how things could be put right. Monbiot visits farms where regenerating soil health has resulted in good crop yields without the need for environmentally destructive chemicals. He also talks about new crops that don't require annual ploughing, and a Finnish laboratory growing an entirely new kind of protein. It's all exciting stuff which soon lifted the grey cloud over my head. I could feel myself becoming enthused by Monbiot's excitement at these new - and not-so new - solutions, the only niggle being that each one is an isolated small-scale project without the huge monetary backing of the agriculture industry. It's a catch-22 scenario. While Monbiot rightly identifies a need to move away from global food corporations and return to the greater stability of more localised, independent production, we need to do so without the big money forcing these new solutions to follow the same path as we're currently on.
I feel that Regenesis is such an important book which will hopefully drive some real change in the ways we think about our food and how it is produced. For such an emotive topic, Regenesis stays level-headed using facts and figures to make its arguments. I think this approach will appeal to practical and science-led readers in a similar way to Karthik Sekar's book, After Meat. I hope it does appeal to and influence a wide readership because we're rapidly running out of time. As Monbiot explains, the needed individual changes are far less disruptive than those we managed under Covid restrictions, but they need to be made and made soon.
This book does not shy away from unpopular opinions, and is really good at backing up these opinions with the proper research references. It doesn't just say what is wrong with agriculture today, but also provides a whole range of possible solutions to the problem.
Provocative and inspiring reading especially the second part of the book where Monbiot introduce us to a a few radical farmers who pioneer ways to grow food that does not destroy the soil's health and fertility.
