This excerpt originally appeared in The Spectator on March 31, 2012.

Cowen is at his best when he provides a sane perspective on policy issues. Even in 2012, malnutrition, not obesity, is the world’s main food problem. The only way it can be solved is through globalised trade in food and agricultural innovation. Wherever locavorism was applied on a large scale, as in Saudi Arabia in the 1980s, it led to environmental damage and huge economic costs.