THE FIGHT AGAINST HUNGER

For 45 years Wilson has reported and written books on food production and this is his memoir. Starting with his cub years as an Ozarks reporter, he moves to the corn belt beat, an accidental scoop interview with Calvin Coolidge and thereafter reportage of several presidents' farm policy or (more frequently) lack of it. There is a foray into United Fruit's complicated contribution to Latin America, and Wilson, who seems to have been a company functionary (he is not at all clear on this) cautiously gives the company its due. He ends, finally, in Canada on a dual inspection mission, for Reader's Digest and the Rockefeller Foundation, of the region's first large-scale commercial harvest. This last event, like so many of the episodes, is only sketchily recounted, and is subordinated to Wilson's plea for increased productivity. Haphazard and dull.