Farmageddon

In 2012, Isabel was commissioned by the charity Compassion in World Farming to help bring their message about the perils of industrial food production to a wide audience.

She spent two years working on the book with Compassion’s Chief Executive Philip Lymbery. Together, they travelled all over the world, from the chemical soaked almond groves of California to the mega piggeries of rural China; from grim beef production plants in Argentina to algae strewn beaches of Brittany, investigating the impact of the world’s runaway demand for bargain basement chicken, pork , milk and beef.

Meticulously researched and referenced, the resulting environmental expose was critically acclaimed and serialized by the both the Daily Mail and The Sunday Times. To date it has been translated into four languages: Japanese, Italian, Polish and Mandarin.

Isabel went on to edit Dead Zone, a second book by Philip Lymbery, about the impact of industrial farming on wildlife, published by Bloomsbury in 2017.

Reviews

Lymbery brings to this essential subject the perspective of a seasoned campaigner - he is informed enough to be appalled, and moderate enough to persuade us to take responsibility for the system that feeds us (GuardianBook of the Week)

This eye-opening book, urging a massive rethink of how we raise livestock and how we feed the world, deserves global recognition (Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall)

A devastating indictment of cheap meat and factory farming. Don't turn away: it demands reading and deserves the widest possible audience (Joanna Lumley)

This incredibly important book should be read by anyone who cares about people, the planet, and particularly, animals (Jilly Cooper)

Offers the kind of realistic and compassionate solutions on which our prospects for a truly sustainable world depend (Jonathon Porritt)

This meaty account makes a distinctive and important contribution, eschewing the narrowly domestic focus of many of its predecessors in favour of a global investigation ... An engaging read - and it also gives a full enough picture of the situation in the UK to preclude any smugness on the part of the British reader. Anyone after a realistic account of our global food chain, and the changes necessary for a sustainable future, will find much to get their teeth into here (Felicity Cloake, New Statesman)

There's no end to techno-idiocy in pursuit of profit. But far more concerning is Lymbery's contention that the wastefulness of feeding human-edible plants and fish to animals is not just absurd but catastrophic. The main reason for hacking down the remaining South American forest is to grow soy to feed the pigs and chickens of China (Evening Standard)

'Heartbreaking' (Irish Times)