Would also recommend Oxford's Very Short Introduction to Agriculture (there's also a Food one but can't remember if I liked it), and Robert Paarlberg's Food Politics. Two books I found useless are "Empires of Food" and "A Social History of Agriculture".
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Replying to @DeconinckKoen @rootsofprogress
It depends on what you want to know, but the development of agriculture in the New World is linked with the first wave of globalization etc.; a good book on that is Jeffry Frieden, "Global Capitalism".
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Replying to @DeconinckKoen @rootsofprogress
Agriculture is typically politically very sensitive; poor countries have historically tended to tax farmers while rich countries have tended to support them (mostly through import tariffs etc). See this paper (by my PhD advisor) as a starting point: DOI 10.1093/aepp/ppp012
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Replying to @DeconinckKoen @rootsofprogress
Agricultural R&D has incredibly important benefits to society and it's an area where gov'ts continuously under-invest. If you want to read more on this (history, current context, policy aspects) see "Persistence Pays" by Alston et al, and work by Fuglie & Heisey at USDA
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Replying to @DeconinckKoen @rootsofprogress
On the economic history of agriculture in Europe (in addition to Federico's book 'Feeding the World'), I also enjoyed the essays in Lains & Pinella's "Agriculture and Economic Development in Europe since 1870"
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Replying to @DeconinckKoen @rootsofprogress
Speaking of Federico's book, there's at least two other books with similar titles: Vaclav Smil, "Feeding the World" (good but old - from 2000 I think); and "How to Feed the World" by Eise & Foster (more recent, essays on various topics including e.g. water)
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Replying to @DeconinckKoen @rootsofprogress
If you want to get a sense of magnitudes and mega-trends, a good source is FAO's "Future of Food and Agriculture". 2 volumes. 1st covers various topics/trends/challenges, 2nd contains scenario analysis up to 2050 (and is really interesting).
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Replying to @DeconinckKoen @rootsofprogress
On sustainability issues, see e.g.
@WRIFood's fascinating "Creating A Sustainable Food Future" report.1 reply 0 retweets 1 like -
More polemical and therefore more fun to read: Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food, and Jayson Lusk's The Food Police (two polar opposites in terms of their view on the modern food system)
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(Sorry, it now sounds as passive-aggressive criticism of the WRI report, that's not what I meant! I meant they're an easier read than all of the other stuff I've listed, as it's a more conversational tone and less academic)
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Thanks for all the pointers! Much appreciated
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