More is Less? - Michael Grunwald

Michael Grunwald is an environmental journalist who sees maximizing efficient production as the most important sustainability strategy. His book, "We Are Eating the Earth," brings fresh attention to an old debate.

Episode Links

• We Are Eating the Earth
• Grunwald, M. (2024, December 13). Opinion | Sorry, but This Is the Future of Food. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/13/opinion/food-agriculture-factory-farms-climate-change.html
• The Useful Idiot, Land Food Nexus rebuttal to Grunwald's NYT piece
• The Enduring Fantasy of Feeding the World, Spectre Journal
• Historians rethink the Green Revolution
• The Globalization of Wheat: A Critical History of the Green Revolution
• Max Ajl's A People's Green New Deal
• On the contribution of yields to hunger abatement: 
  Smith, L. C., & Haddad, L. (2015). Reducing Child Undernutrition: Past Drivers and Priorities for the Post-MDG Era. World Development, 68, 180–204. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2014.11.014
• On the role of intensive agriculture in failing to reduce deforestation:
  • Ceddia, M. G., Bardsley, N. O., Gomez-y-Paloma, S., & Sedlacek, S. (2014). Governance, agricultural intensification, and land sparing in tropical South America. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(20), 7242–7247. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1317967111
  • Pratzer, M., Fernández-Llamazares, Á., Meyfroidt, P., Krueger, T., Baumann, M., Garnett, S. T., & Kuemmerle, T. (2023). Agricultural intensification, Indigenous stewardship and land sparing in tropical dry forests. Nature Sustainability, 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-023-01073-0
  • Thaler, G. M. (2017). The Land Sparing Complex: Environmental Governance, Agricultural Intensification, and State Building in the Brazilian Amazon. Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 107(6), 1424–1443. https://doi.org/10.1080/24694452.2017.1309966
  • Land sparers feel thier oats
  • Thaler, G. M. (2024). Saving a Rainforest and Losing the World: Conservation and displacement in the global tropics. Yale University Press.

     
• The IEA on competing theories of Indirect Land Use Change and biofuels: Towards an improved assessment of indirect land-use change – Evaluating common narratives, approaches, and tools  
• More Work for Mother: The Ironies Of Household Technology From The Open Hearth To The Microwave | Ruth Cowan
• Munro, K. (2025). Reconsidering the relationship between home appliance ownership and married women's labor supply: Evidence from Brazil (No. 2509).
• The Global Alliance for the Future of Food call for investment in food systems transition
• The World Resources Institute report on Denmark's Green Tripartite Agreement
• Behind the Danish Green Tripartite – Democracy, Smallholders and the Rights of Rural People
• Grunwald debates an agroecologist

• At COP30, Brazilian Meat Giant JBS Recommends Climate Policy 

   

About Landscapes

Landscapes is produced by Adam Calo. A complete written transcript of the episode can be found on Adam's newsletter: Land Food Nexus.

Send feedback or questions to adamcalo@substack.com or Bluesky

Music by Blue Dot Sessions: "Kilkerrin" by Blue Dot Sessions (www.sessions.blue).