‘Food from Nowhere’: Food, Fuel and the Fantastical

Science fiction (sf) has repeatedly explored the social and environmental consequences of technological developments in food and energy production. Never before have these explorations been of more importance and significance; recent shifts in resource extraction and processing (by both fossil fuel and ‘biofuel’ companies) have dramatically increased the reach and destructiveness of industrial food and energy production, as well as the extent of their entanglement. This article will begin by giving an indication of the reach and impacts of modern biofuel production, followed by a brief examination of the ‘food sovereignty’ movement and the theoretical frameworks and practical strategies that underpin it.

Through the lens of the ‘food sovereignty’ movement, the article examines the ways in which sf writing and culture has explored the entanglement of food and energy regimes. Taking three aspects developed from the ‘six pillars’ of food sovereignty – political power, ecological integration and the fantastical – I examine three sf texts which place at their centre concerns over the entanglement of food and energy regimes. As I go on to demonstrate, all three texts – Robert A. Heinlein’s The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (1966), the British post-apocalyptic TV show Survivors (1975–7), and Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Windup Girl (2009) – use elements of the fantastical to explore and make visible effects which are rarely seen or only understood in the abstract language of international political economy. I then conclude by reflecting on the urgent need apply these insights in the struggle for a fairer and more sustainable food system.