This book claims that between 1970 and 2010 the Green Revolution reduced the percentage of undernourished people in developing countries from 30 to 15%, but it does not reveal that over this period the number of undernourished people has increased to 925 million. It does acknowledge the environmental cost of the Green Revolution and its inability to continue to improve the yields of cereal crops. It also accepts that the present production paradigm is unsustainable and in order to grow, production systems will depend on conservation of resources. Future crop systems will need to be based on a small-scale, knowledge-intensive, agro-ecosystem approach, which can be replicated world-wide. The book is offered as a toolkit of adaptable farming systems, technologies, practices and concomitant policies and institutional arrangements.

There are seven sections: The Challenge; Farming Systems; Soil Health; Crops and Varieties; Water Management; Plant Protection, and Policies and Institutions. The overall availability of world food and its control by a few major players is ignored, as is the difficulty of obtaining food by millions of poorer people. Crop production systems are covered but the important role of livestock, local knowledge and skills within many farming systems are not fully acknowledged.

The most important omissions are any discussion of social structures, social learning and political power over the production of crops and food. There are excellent technical chapters on soils, water and plant protection, but the text lacks an understanding of the real world and how it operates.