On The Future of Food. By HRH The Prince of Wales

On May 4, 2001 Prince Charles gave a quite brilliant keynote speech at The Future of Food Conference at Georgetown. This 45 pg. book ($6.99) is the text of the speech, along with introduction and afterword.

What you may not know (I didn’t), is that Prince Charles for decades has spoken strongly against industrial agriculture. And he practices what he says in his own farming and in the charities he supports.

I highly recommend this book, it is a jewel. Here’s a few quotes. Read the whole thing.

Why is it that an industrialized system, deeply dependent on fossil fuels and chemical treatments, is promoted as viable, while a much less damaging one is rubbished and condemned as unfit for purpose?

The extreme destructiveness – and therefore the fragility – of industrial agriculture is not a secret.

Soils are being depleted, demand for water is growing ever more voracious, and the entire system is at the mercy of an increasingly flucuating price of oil.

Over a billion people in the world are hungry and, on the reverse side of the coin, over a billion people are now considered overweight or obese. It is an increasingly insane picture.

Genuinely sustainable farming maintains the resilence of the entire ecosystem by encouraging a rich level of biodiversity in the soil., in its water supply, and in the wildlife that maintain the health of the whole system.