Download or read book A Revolution Down on the Farm written by Paul K. Conkin and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2008-09-01 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At a time when food is becoming increasingly scarce in many parts of the world and food prices are skyrocketing, no industry is more important than agriculture. Humans have been farming for thousands of years, and yet agriculture has undergone more fundamental changes in the past 80 years than in the previous several centuries. In 1900, 30 million American farmers tilled the soil or tended livestock; today there are fewer than 4.5 million farmers who feed a population four times larger than it was at the beginning of the century. Fifty years ago, the planet could not have sustained a population of 6.5 billion; now, commercial and industrial agriculture ensure that millions will not die from starvation. Farmers are able to feed an exponentially growing planet because the greatest industrial revolution in history has occurred in agriculture since 1929, with U.S. farmers leading the way. Productivity on American farms has increased tenfold, even as most small farmers and tenants have been forced to find other work. Today, only 300,000 farms produce approximately ninety percent of the total output, and overproduction, largely subsidized by government programs and policies, has become the hallmark of modern agriculture. A Revolution Down on the Farm: The Transformation of American Agriculture since 1929 charts the profound changes in farming that have occurred during author Paul K. Conkin's lifetime. His personal experiences growing up on a small Tennessee farm complement compelling statistical data as he explores America's vast agricultural transformation and considers its social, political, and economic consequences. He examines the history of American agriculture, showing how New Deal innovations evolved into convoluted commodity programs following World War II. Conkin assesses the skills, new technologies, and government policies that helped transform farming in America and suggests how new legislation might affect farming in decades to come. Although the increased production and mechanization of farming has been an economic success story for Americans, the costs are becoming increasingly apparent. Small farmers are put out of business when they cannot compete with giant, non-diversified corporate farms. Caged chickens and hogs in factory-like facilities or confined dairy cattle require massive amounts of chemicals and hormones ultimately ingested by consumers. Fertilizers, new organic chemicals, manure disposal, and genetically modified seeds have introduced environmental problems that are still being discovered. A Revolution Down on the Farm concludes with an evaluation of farming in the twenty-first century and a distinctive meditation on alternatives to our present large scale, mechanized, subsidized, and fossil fuel and chemically dependent system.
Download or read book Another Revolution in U S farming written by Lyle P. Schertz and published by . This book was released on 1979 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Founding Gardeners written by Andrea Wulf and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2012-04-03 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the bestselling author of The Invention of Nature, a fascinating look at the Founding Fathers like none you've seen before. “Illuminating and engrossing.... The reader relives the first decades of the Republic ... through the words of the statesmen themselves.” —The New York Times Book Review For the Founding Fathers, gardening, agriculture, and botany were elemental passions: a conjoined interest as deeply ingrained in their characters as the battle for liberty and a belief in the greatness of their new nation. Founding Gardeners is an exploration of that obsession, telling the story of the revolutionary generation from the unique perspective of their lives as gardeners, plant hobbyists, and farmers. Acclaimed historian Andrea Wulf describes how George Washington wrote letters to his estate manager even as British warships gathered off Staten Island; how a tour of English gardens renewed Thomas Jefferson’s and John Adams’s faith in their fledgling nation; and why James Madison is the forgotten father of environmentalism. Through these and other stories, Wulf reveals a fresh, nuanced portrait of the men who created our nation.
Download or read book Another Revolution in U S Farming written by United States. Department of Agriculture. Economics, Statistics, and Cooperatives Service and published by . This book was released on 1979 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book America s Transition from Agriculture to Industry written by Greg Roza and published by The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc. This book was released on 2005-12-15 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Describes how America changed its agricultural practices as a result of the Civil War and the Industrial Revolution.
Download or read book The New Farm written by Brent Preston and published by Abrams. This book was released on 2018-03-27 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This “must-read” memoir of human-scale agriculture offers an insider’s view of today’s food system by a leading voice in sustainable farming (Daniel Boulud). After years of working at the ends of the earth in human rights and development, Brent Preston and his wife were die-hard city dwellers. But when their second child arrived, the shine came off urban living. In 2003 they bought a hundred acres and a rundown farmhouse, determined to build a farm that would sustain their family, nourish their community, heal their environment—and turn a profit. The New Farm is Preston’s memoir of a decade of toil and perseverance. Farming is a complex and precarious business, and they made plenty of mistakes along the way. But as they learned how to grow food, and to succeed at the business of farming, they also found that a small, sustainable, organic farm could be an engine for change, a path to a more just and sustainable food system. Today, The New Farm supplies top restaurants, supports community food banks, hosts events with leading chefs, and grows extraordinary produce. Told with humor and heart, The New Farm is a joy, a passionate book by an important new voice.
Download or read book What Difference Could a Revolution Make written by Joseph Collins and published by . This book was released on 1982 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Monograph on trends in land tenure and food production after the 1979 revolution in Nicaragua - examines government policies to overcome underdevelopment, agrarian reform, characteristics of state farms and the private sector (esp. Commercial farming), agricultural credit, wage policy compatible with productivity increase, the cooperative movement, food policy and price policy, etc., discusses obstacles (role of USA), and includes a chronology of political development events since 1821. Bibliography pp. 175 to 179, graphs and references.
Download or read book Food and the City written by Jennifer Cockrall-King and published by Prometheus Books. This book was released on 2012-02-14 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A global movement to take back our food is growing. The future of farming is in our hands—and in our cities. This book examines alternative food systems in cities around the globe that are shortening their food chains, growing food within their city limits, and taking their "food security" into their own hands. The author, an award-winning food journalist, sought out leaders in the urban-agriculture movement and visited cities successfully dealing with "food deserts." What she found was not just a niche concern of activists but a global movement that cuts across the private and public spheres, economic classes, and cultures. She describes a global movement happening from London and Paris to Vancouver and New York to establish alternatives to the monolithic globally integrated supermarket model. A cadre of forward-looking, innovative people has created growing spaces in cities: on rooftops, backyards, vacant lots, along roadways, and even in "vertical farms." Whether it’s a community public orchard supplying the needs of local residents or an urban farm that has reclaimed a derelict inner city lot to grow and sell premium market veggies to restaurant chefs, the urban food revolution is clearly underway and working. This book is an exciting, fascinating chronicle of a game-changing movement, a rebellion against the industrial food behemoth, and a reclaiming of communities to grow, distribute, and eat locally.
Download or read book Another Revolution in U S Farming written by United States. Department of Agriculture. Economics, Statistics, and Cooperatives Service and published by . This book was released on 1980 with total page 12 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Growing a Revolution Bringing Our Soil Back to Life written by David R. Montgomery and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2017-05-09 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Finalist for the PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award “A call to action that underscores a common goal: to change the world from the ground up.”—Dan Barber, author of The Third Plate For centuries, agricultural practices have eroded the soil that farming depends on, stripping it of the organic matter vital to its productivity. Now conventional agriculture is threatening disaster for the world’s growing population. In Growing a Revolution, geologist David R. Montgomery travels the world, meeting farmers at the forefront of an agricultural movement to restore soil health. From Kansas to Ghana, he sees why adopting the three tenets of conservation agriculture—ditching the plow, planting cover crops, and growing a diversity of crops—is the solution. When farmers restore fertility to the land, this helps feed the world, cool the planet, reduce pollution, and return profitability to family farms.
Download or read book Breaking Loose Together written by Marjoleine Kars and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2003-04-03 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ten years before the start of the American Revolution, backcountry settlers in the North Carolina Piedmont launched their own defiant bid for economic independence and political liberty. The Regulator Rebellion of 1766-71 pitted thousands of farmers, many of them religious radicals inspired by the Great Awakening, against political and economic elites who opposed the Regulators' proposed reforms. The conflict culminated on May 16, 1771, when a colonial militia defeated more than 2,000 armed farmers in a pitched battle near Hillsborough. At least 6,000 Regulators and sympathizers were forced to swear their allegiance to the government as the victorious troops undertook a punitive march through Regulator settlements. Seven farmers were hanged. Using sources that include diaries, church minutes, legal papers, and the richly detailed accounts of the Regulators themselves, Marjoleine Kars delves deeply into the world and ideology of free rural colonists. She examines the rebellion's economic, religious, and political roots and explores its legacy in North Carolina and beyond. The compelling story of the Regulator Rebellion reveals just how sharply elite and popular notions of independence differed on the eve of the Revolution.
Download or read book The Agricultural Revolution of the 20th Century written by Don Paarlberg and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2008-02-28 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A book for a varied audience: college students of agriculture and sociology; high school students of vocation agriculture; members of the American Agricultural Economics Association; people with a long-standing background in agriculture; and other readers interested in 20th century agriculture. The book reads like a story and is supplemented with excellent photographs, contrasting past practices with modern technology.
Download or read book From British Peasants to Colonial American Farmers written by Allan Kulikoff and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2014-02-01 with total page 504 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With this book, Allan Kulikoff offers a sweeping new interpretation of the origins and development of the small farm economy in Britain's mainland American colonies. Examining the lives of farmers and their families, he tells the story of immigration to the colonies, traces patterns of settlement, analyzes the growth of markets, and assesses the impact of the Revolution on small farm society. Beginning with the dispossession of the peasantry in early modern England, Kulikoff follows the immigrants across the Atlantic to explore how they reacted to a hostile new environment and its Indian inhabitants. He discusses how colonists secured land, built farms, and bequeathed those farms to their children. Emphasizing commodity markets in early America, Kulikoff shows that without British demand for the colonists' crops, settlement could not have begun at all. Most important, he explores the destruction caused during the American Revolution, showing how the war thrust farmers into subsistence production and how they only gradually regained their prewar prosperity.
Download or read book The Resisted Revolution written by David B. Danbom and published by Wiley-Blackwell. This book was released on 1979 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book American Environmental History written by Dan Allosso and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2017-12-14 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An expanded, new and improved American Environmental History textbook for everyone! After years of teaching Environmental History at a major East Coast University without a textbook, Dr. Dan Allosso decided to take matters into his own hands. The result, American Environmental History, is a concise, comprehensive survey covering the material from Dan's undergraduate course. What do people say about the class and the text? "This was my first semester and this course has created an incredible first impression. If all of the courses are this good, I am going to really enjoy my time here. The course has completely changed the way I look at the world." (Student in 2014 class) "One of the few classes I'm really sad is ending, the subject matter is fascinating and Dan is a great guide to it. His approach should be required of all students as it teaches an appreciation for a newer and better way of living." (Student in 2014 class) "Allosso's lectures are fantastic. The best I have ever had. So impressed. The material is always extremely interesting and well-presented." (Student in 2015 class) "It is just a perfect course that I think should be mandatory if we want to save our planet and live responsibly." (Student in 2015 class) "A rare gem for an IB ESS teacher or any social studies teacher looking for an 11th or 12th grade supplementary text that aims to provide an historical context for the environmental reality in America today. Highly recommended." (District Curriculum Coordinator, 2016) "I was so impressed with this material that I am using it as a supplement for a course I teach at my college." (History and Environmental Studies Professor, 2017) Beginning in prehistory and concluding in the present, American Environmental History explores the ways the environment has affected the choices that became our history, and how our choices have affected the environment. The dynamic relationship between people and the world around them is missing from mainstream history. Putting the environment back into history helps us make sense of the past and the present, which will help guide us toward a better future. More information and Dan's blog are available at environmentalhistory.us
Download or read book The Real Agricultural Revolution written by Paul Brassley and published by Boydell Press. This book was released on 2023-11-14 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An investigation into farming practices throughout a period of seismic change. WINNER of the British Agricultural History Society's 2022 Thirsk Prize WINNER of the 2022 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title Award "This meticulously researched book gives a detailed and authoritative history of agricultural change in the second half of the twentieth century. The book skilfully weaves together the hitherto underexplored individual returns of the Farm Management Survey with oral histories of the farmers who enacted change on the ground to offer an incisive account of the complex technological, political and cultural developments which gave rise to some of the greatest changes in English farming history. It will stand as the key reference point for those with an interest in the history of agricultural change in Britain." Professor Mark Riley, University of Liverpool At the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 British agriculture was largely powered by the muscles of men, women, and horses, and used mostly nineteenth-century technology to produce less than half of the country's temperate food. By 1985, less land and far fewer people were involved in farming, the power sources and technologies had been completely transformed, and the output of the country's agriculture had more than doubled. This is the story of the national farm, reflecting the efforts and experiences of 200,000 or so farmers and their families, together with the people they employed. But it is not the story of any individual one of them. We know too little about change at the individual farm level, although what happened varied considerably between farms and between different technologies. Based on an improbably-surviving archive of Farm Management Survey accounts, supported by oral histories from some of the farmers involved, this book explores the links between the production of new technologies, their transmission through knowledge networks, and their reception on individual farms. It contests the idea that rapid adoption of technology was inevitable, and reveals the unevenness, variability and complexity that lay beneath the smooth surface of the official statistics.
Download or read book The Diaries V 6 Jan 1790 Dec 1799 written by George Washington and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 1979 with total page 586 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Washington was rarely isolated from the world during his eventful life. His diary for 1751-52 relates a voyage to Barbados when he was nineteen. The next two accounts concern the early phases of the French and Indian War, in which Washington commanded a Virginia regiment. By the 1760s when Washington's diaries resume, he considered himself retired from public life, but George III was on the British throne and in the American colonies the process of unrest was beginning that would ultimately place Washington in command of a revolutionary army. Even as he traveled to Philadelphia in 1787 to chair the Constitutional Convention, however, and later as president, Washington's first love remained his plantation, Mount Vernon. In his diary, he religiously recorded the changing methods of farming he employed there and the pleasures of riding and hunting. Rich in material from this private sphere, The Diaries of George Washington offer historians and anyone interested in Washington a closer view of the first president in this bicentennial year of his death.
