In some recent literature on aspect of food problem, there is a welcome initiative to look at some long neglected areas. For example, problems like pollution or depletion of drinking water sources, loss of forest-based foods including fruits, flowers and roots which prove particularly useful in drought years, the conversion of staple foods of the poor into luxury foods of the rich though various processing technologies, and of course the growing problem of wood-fuel shortage. The book under review is an important publication on the ‘woodfuel crisis’, by an author who had shown promise in her earlier work too.
The growing realization of the seriousness of wood-fuel problem for a large number of people, the author states, has brought in its wake a spate of ‘solutions’ in the form of improved wood burning devices (especially domestic cooking stoves) a variety of tree-planting schemes, and improved wood-conversion hardware (especially charcoal kilns)..