What happens on this planet over the next four decades has the potential to fundamentally alter life as we know it. The world population is expected to reach nine billion people by 2050—that’s nine billion hungry humans in need of food. The challenge of feeding this rapidly growing population has already been made greater by climate change, which will wreak havoc on the way we produce our food. Disruptions to industrial-scale agriculture, along with rising sea levels, will create millions of environmental refugees, fleeing their homes in search of nourishment and safety. We have also lost touch with the soil—few of us grow our own food or even know where it comes from—and we are at the mercy of the multinationals that control the crops with little foresight about the damage their methods are inflicting on the planet. This puts our very future at risk.

In Consumed, award-winning writer Sarah Elton walks fields and farms on four continents, investigating not only the potential—and very real—threats to our food, but also telling the stories of those who are working hard to preserve our future. From Bogotá to Beijing, Delhi to Rome, Nairobi to Toronto, people from all walks of life are creating an alternative to the industrial food we have grown accustomed to piling into our shopping carts, and in the process giving us hope not for a daunting future but for a future in which we can all sit at the table.