Regenesis: Feeding the World without Devouring the Planet, by George Monbiot

Book recommendation by Jigar Shah , Head of Sustainability Research, Maybank Investment Banking Group. These are his personal views.

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Written in 2022, I consider this book a landmark piece of work on the crusade against 'the global standard farm' and 'the global standard diet’.

The author Monbiot is a climate and political activist and investigative journalist. Before writing this book, he studied for a degree and read over 5,000 papers.

Though I know little about farming and this book uses plenty of technical terms that only farming experts can understand, I still loved reading it for the insights it packs in under 300 pages.

There are scathing criticisms of politicians, policymakers, corporations, and others, replete with well-studied solutions about how to change farming from a destructive practice to becoming environmentally friendlier, healthier, and more equitable.

Below are some interesting data points and punchlines:

• It is possible to meet the world’s need for protein and fat with local farm-free foods through new fermentation technologies used by local businesses to serve local markets. As some of the world’s poorest nations are rich in ambient energy – the sunlight that strikes them – they could produce new foods cheaply through such methods.
• As hydrogen production becomes more efficient, bacterial protein, which has the potential to make food out of air, also becomes cheaper. If bacterial protein is widely accepted, for the first time in human history we will have staple food that did not arise from photosynthesis. This frees up the need to clear land to feed growing populations.
• Land destruction is not an accidental outcome of the subsidy regime; it is a contractual requirement.
• In his influential essay The Quants & The Poets, my friend and antagonist Paul Kingsnorth uses the terms sometimes taught on MBA courses – ‘quants’ do the numbers, ‘poets’ do the words. He complains that ‘the green movement is being taken over by quants’, which could lead to industrial agriculture only for more yields versus focus on soil quality and biodiversity. A balance is needed.

What could ASEAN take away as learnings from this book?

• Farmers should have clear and secure land rights to have an incentive to adopt sustainable farming methods.
• The anti-trust laws and protection of intellectual property rights should be strong enough to support small and marginal farmers versus large corporations.
• Review farm subsidies and insurance to see if those are helping the small farmer, improving soil health, and not leading to excessive irrigation.
• Incentivise and fund the development of microbial fermentation and other lab-grown protein technologies.
• Make it mandatory for companies to report on biodiversity impact assessment and their supply chain, verified by third-party auditors.