91É«ÇéƬ

Ernest Callenbach describes “a devil’s bargain” in Bring Back the Buffalo (Island Press, £22.95, ISBN I 55963 440 3): American grain exports sell nonrenewable soil and water to earn foreign exchange to buy nonrenewable oil. Eventually, the overworked thin skim of soil over the Great Plains will blow away, irrigation systems from Texas to Nebraska will drain the aquifers dry and the grain-for-oil trade will die. Callenbach has a solution: not the boringly predictable sustainable crop mix nor the hectoring use-less-energy command. No, he wants the Great Plains to teem with buffalo. How will this answer the farmers’ problems? Well buffalo tread lightly … Sorry, they tread hard but move continuously so they don’t grind up the ground as cattle do. They need less water, less coddlingly – and they taste delicious. And the 200 000 already on the plains look good, thundering around. Lots of enthusiasm, some romantic notions, but a worthwhile read.