The Agricultural Dilemma

How Not to Feed the World

Abstract

In The Agricultural Dilemma, Stone asserts that Malthus got it backwards: before industrialization, farmers skillfully intensified agriculture, increasing food production when population density required it. Stone debates neo-Malthusians (those who believe we must industrialize agriculture to prevent starvation due to population outstripping the food supply) with overwhelming evidence that intensification is a more sustainable and just strategy. Industrialized agriculture is characterized by appropriation, subsidies, and overproduction. Stone shows when scientists, government, and industry were most active in calling for industrialization to help farmers or the hungry, they were struggling to store or utilize overproduction; industrialization did not increase the rate agricultural yields grew by; and industrialization disproportionately benefitted the wealthiest farmers even when its advocates claimed it would help the poor.