How can you help avert famine?

“This book,” celebrated author Julian Cribb explains in the preface to his latest work, “is a wake-up call.”

No doubt about that. “The Coming Famine” details how the dynamics shaping food demand and production are combining to push the world toward an unprecedented level of hunger and starvation. Throw wars in there as a likely outcome, too, Cribb writes.

But there’s a big “if.” If the world doesn’t address the mounting shortages of water, land and agricultural know-how. If the agricultural mindset doesn’t change. If new, more responsible methods aren’t adopted.

What he doesn’t say in the book, but will likely stress at his key address at the International Foodservice Sustainability Symposium next month, is the “if” of big agriculture not responding to the pressures directed at them by foodservice chefs and their customers.

It’s not a matter of pleasing some well-heeled foodie who likes his asparagus harvested just that day. It’s a matter of sustaining the world’s food production capabilities.

Hear more about how restaurants can remedy the situation at the IFSS, a daylong brainstorming session on sustainability.