Practicing Social Justice Book

Lester Brown has three main points:
1) Available cropland is decreasing year-over-year
2) Science can no longer increase crop yields in a material way
3) Climate change and ecological damage is destroying what remains of China's land that is still suitable for agriculture.

Almost 25 years later, his first two arguments have been completely disproven, and much of his third argument no longer holds true. Brown makes faulty comparisons when comparing the relation between rapid industrialization and grain self-sufficiency by comparing China with Japan and Taiwan. Brown also claims that science can only go so far in boosting crop yields, yet biotechnology and GM
crops have already greatly increased China's crop yield today.

Lastly, Brown uses national averages and statistics to make excessive generalizations that disregard China's enormous physical and human diversity. There is no effort to address the great regional inequalities and differences between China's western, central, and eastern districts where diets are very different. Overall, the book has not aged very well and I only read it to complete a human geography course at the University of Waterloo.