How to Feed the World
A review of

How to Feed the World

The History and Future of Food

Vaclav Smil • Viking • 2025
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How to Feed the World

by David Meyer

Scientist, policy analyst, and prolific author Vaclav Smil discusses the obstacles to feeding the world and describes changes that can end world hunger. 

Czech-Canadian scientist and policy analyst Vaclav Smil – who also wrote Energy and Civilization: A History – argues that people on Earth produce more than enough food to feed the world’s population. He reports that the problem of hunger arises from distribution inefficiencies, food waste, and unrealistic solutions.

He begins his work on the global food supply chain with the beginning of agriculture. Starting about 12,000 years ago in the Middle East, and continuing over thousands of years and across the planet, he writes, people turned to crop farming and animal domestication to provide more reliable, immediate sources of food.

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