Foreword

Since the creation of the first farms over 10,000 years ago, mankind has devised increasingly clever ways of harvesting sunlight and converting this into food by essentially growing carbon in sustainable farming systems. However, it is only in the last 100 years or so that we have found ways to accelerate this process, partly based on extraction of oil and gas, enabling us to produce more food for an ever-increasing population. Our use of improved science, technology and training has been targeted at maximising production to produce cheap and plentiful food and energy supplies. This has been the strategy of governments around the globe and measured against this, the agricultural industry has been highly successful. However, the success has come