Food Planet Future: The Art of Turning Food and Climate Perils into Possibilities

Food Planet Future takes the reader on an extraordinary visual tour of everyday foods and in the process, connects us more deeply to the world we help to shape. It draws upon art, research, and innovative practices to reimagine the tangled crises of food security, climate change, and biodiversity loss. Food Planet Future invokes awe and wonder and inspires action taken on our Earth's behalf. Food Planet Future illustrates and describes practices, tools, knowledge, and research which, if implemented on a wide scale, could help reverse climate change threats and biodiversity loss. These include: no-till cultivation techniques, perennial planting, soil amendments such as rock dust, biochar, and compost, use of cover crops and prairie strips, rotational grazing of livestock, integration of tree crops with livestock, intercropping, prescribed burning, seawater agriculture, ecosystem restoration, new crop cultivars, and more. It is imperative that we inform people about the best ideas to solve the food and climate breakdown. Food Planet Future invites readers to reimagine those possibilities. AUTHOR: A career science educator and self-taught photographer, Robert Dash searches out tiny subjects with large stories about climate, conservation, and biodiversity. His work has been published by TIME, Lenswork, Buzzfeed, and National Geographic (Growing a Greener Feast, 2022, Best Science Photos of 2021). Dash's images have appeared in galleries and juried shows in the US and overseas. His TEDx lecture, The Intercourse of Nature, explores leaf stomata as a metaphor for interconnectedness. Dash's travelling exhibition, which birthed this book, is titled Food Planet Future. His first book, On An Acre Shy of Eternity / Micro Landscapes at the Edge, which won the Nautilus Book Award, was a three year study of land on the edge of the Salish Sea where he and his partner, artist Ranna McNeil, reside. SELLING POINTS: . Striking and unique imagery created using high powered microscopes . Offers a sustainable global approach to food production . Tackles hugely topical themes of future of food, sustainability, and climate change . Cop28 opened with a declaration on sustainable agriculture, signed by more than 130 countries. . Presents exciting new developments, technologies and collaborations in food production, which offer positive solutions to a global crisis 104 colour, 18 b/w illustrations

Table of Contents:
FOREWORD, Thor Hanson PREFACE, Robert Dash INTRODUCTION, Robert Dash ANATOMY OF A MONTAGE PERILS AND PROMISE AGAVE Desert Agroforestry and Carbon Capture AGAVE 2.0 The Billion Agave Project ASPARAGUS Perennial Vegetables AVOCADO New Cultivar, and Searching for Sustainable Fruit AZOLLA A Floating Fern That Once Removed Half of All Atmospheric Carbon AZOLLA 2.0 High Protein, Affordable Livestock Feed BAMBOO The Plant With Countless Uses BEAN “Poor Man’s Protein”, Climate Friendly Food BEAN 2.0 New Seed Bank With 38,000 Bean Types BIOCHAR Ancient Practices Build Microbial Hotels in Soil BLUEBERRY Crop Waste Products and a Circular Economy BUCKWHEAT Restoring Food Security in Remote Villages BUMBLE BEE Indispensable Pollinators With Mushroom Friends CACAO Intercropping With Other Species CACAO 2.0 Reclaiming Degraded Lands CATTLE The Great Meat Debate CATTLE 2.0 Carbon Capture and the Practice of Silvopasture CELERY Strategies to End Food Waste CHESTNUT Return From Oblivion CHIA Healthy Seeds and Plant Chemistry Treasures CHIA 2.0 Levity Is Its Own Kind of Nutrient COCONUT Making Use of Crop Waste CORN and Crop Wild Relatives COVER CROPS Fava Beans, Green Manure, and Soy Alternatives COVER CROPS 2.0 Keep Soil Covered, Keep Roots in the Ground CRICKET AND PEA PROTEIN Climate Benefits of Vegetable and Insect Protein FLAX Plants That Feed and Clothe Us FOREST GARDENS Borage and Multi-Layered Gardens FOREST GARDENS 2.0 Senegalese Forest Gardens Reclaim Desert Lands GINKGO STOMATA Climate Stories on a Geologic Scale HAZELNUTS and Agroforestry HAZELNUTS 2.0 Perennial Woody Crops Versus Annuals HEMP Plant Protein HEMP 2.0 Fast-Growing Building Insulation HOPS Climate Stress, Beer, Biotech INDIGENOUS FOODS Camas Lily: A Hidden Treasure INDIGENOUS FOODS 2.0 Cultural Burning Practices JAPANESE KNOTWEED and Invasive Species JAPANESE KNOTWEED 2.0 Invasive Species as Climate Assets KALE The Mixed Climate Record of Organics KELP Restoring Great Undersea Forests KELP 2.0 Nutritional and Climate Benefits of Kelp Farms KIWIFRUIT Green, Gold, and Contested LACE LICHEN Medicinal Uses, Air Quality Indicator LAVENDER Perennial Benefits LETTUCE Breeding Resilient Varieties LETTUCE 2.0 Microgreens and Hyperlocal, Nutrient-Dense Vegetables MILLET Ancient, Drought-Tolerant Food MILLET 2.0 Keeping Village Food Traditions Alive MUSHROOM MYCELIUM Extraordinary From Every Angle OLIVE Crop Migrations Prompted by Climate Stress PLANKTON Tiny Plants That Produce Half The World’s Oxygen PLANKTON 2.0 Dust, Diatoms, and Carbon Capture POLLINATORS Insect Population Challenges and Biomimicry Innovations POTATO Crop Wild Relatives Increase Resilience in Peru POTATO 2.0 A Long Tradition of Potato Guardians QUINOA Ancient Foods in a Modern World QUINOA 2.0 Bringing Healthy Foods to the Wide World RICE An Unexpected Methane Factory RICE 2.0 Threatened by Salt, but Options Exist ROCK DUST and Carbon Capture ROCK DUST 2.0 Turning Mining Waste Into Locked-Up Carbon ROOT CROPS Carrots and Crop Wild Relatives ROOT CROPS 2.0 Agrivoltaic Solar Gardens SALICORNIA The Promise of Saltwater Agriculture SALMON Alternatives to Destructive Aquaculture SALMON 2.0 Dam Removal and River Rewilding SOIL The Keys to the Kingdom SOIL 2.0 Decay is a Steamy Affair SOY BEAN Powerful Laws Help To Reduce Soy-Related Deforestation SOY BEAN 2.0 Prairie Strips, Water Retention, and Reducing Dead Zones SUNFLOWER Crop Wild Relatives and Perennial Wannabes TOMATOES and Their Crop Wild Relatives TOMATOES 2.0 570 Million Smallholders Grow 30% of Our Food TREES WITH EDIBLE LEAVES The Promise of Tree Vegetables TREES WITH EDIBLE LEAVES 2.0 Moringa’s Multivitamins Grow on Trees TURKEY TAIL MUSHROOM Immune Support and Reduced Wildfire Threats WHEAT and Other Crops Move Towards the Poles WHEAT 2.0 Kernza®, and the Dream of Perennial Grains ARTIST’S PROCESS BIBLIOGRAPHY ABOUT THE AUTHOR

About the Author :
Robert Dash is an educator, naturalist and photographer whose work features the complex textures and patterns of micro nature. His photographs have been published by National Geographic, TIME, Lenswork, and Buzzfeed. They have appeared in galleries and juried shows in the US and internationally. He was shortlisted for the Visura/UPI Grant for Storytelling On Climate Change, 2018. His images traveled as part of the international outdoor exhibition The FENCE. In 2017, Dash authored On An Acre Shy of Eternity, Micro Landscapes at the Edge, which won the Nautilus Book Awards Gold for Photography and Arts, and Best of Self Published. In 2016 he presented the widely-viewed TEDx lecture, "The Intercourse of Nature." His current traveling exhibition about food and climate change is entitled "Food for Thought/ Micro Views of Sustenance: Threats and Prospects."

Review :
The Royal Geographical Society's Geographical Magazine featured Food Plant Future on the front cover titled Future of Food: stunning images about farming in a warming world, and inside an 8-page article titled: A story of survival: "Amid these issues, Robert Dash's Food Planet Future stands out as a captivating journey into art and environmental advocacy." - Geographical Magazine Food Planet Future has been nominated for 2 categories in the 2024 Gourmand Awards: Food Security, and Climate & Food - Gourmand Awards "“Robert Dash’s Food Planet Future stands out as a captivating journey into art and environmental advocacy” “Dash creates surreal narratives ... initiat[ing] dialogue between familiar foods and their microscopic components, offering viewers a fresh view of the hidden intricacies of natural forms” “Beyond its aesthetic allure, Dash’s work ignites conversations about the sustainability of our food systems in the face of the climate crisis”" - Geographical Magazine "... awe-inspiring micrographic images of seeds, flowers, fruits and leaves ..." - The i newspaper Food Planet Future has won the Nautilus Silver Book Award - Nautilus Food Planet Future has won 'Best Food Security Book in the World' at the Gourmand Book Awards. - Gourmand Book Awards