Download or read book Farming While Black written by Leah Penniman and published by Chelsea Green Publishing. This book was released on 2018 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Farming While Black is the first comprehensive "how to" guide for aspiring African-heritage growers to reclaim their dignity as agriculturists and for all farmers to understand the distinct, technical contributions of African-heritage people to sustainable agriculture. At Soul Fire Farm, author Leah Penniman co-created the Black and Latino Farmers Immersion (BLFI) program as a container for new farmers to share growing skills in a culturally relevant and supportive environment led by people of color. Farming While Black organizes and expands upon the curriculum of the BLFI to provide readers with a concise guide to all aspects of small-scale farming, from business planning to preserving the harvest. Throughout the chapters Penniman uplifts the wisdom of the African diasporic farmers and activists whose work informs the techniques described--from whole farm planning, soil fertility, seed selection, and agroecology, to using whole foods in culturally appropriate recipes, sharing stories of ancestors, and tools for healing from the trauma associated with slavery and economic exploitation on the land. Woven throughout the book is the story of Soul Fire Farm, a national leader in the food justice movement." --

Download or read book Farming for the Long Haul written by Michael Foley and published by Chelsea Green Publishing. This book was released on 2019 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Farming in the ruins of the twentieth century -- A short, unhappy history of business advice for farmers -- Subsistence first! -- Land for the tiller -- Soil, civilization, and resilient farmers through the centuries -- Resourceful farmers -- Woodlands and wastes -- It takes a village: leisure, community, and resilience -- Getting a living, forging a livelihood -- Farmer, citizen, survivor: politics and resilience

Download or read book The Rise of Women Farmers and Sustainable Agriculture written by Carolyn Sachs and published by University of Iowa Press. This book was released on 2016-05-15 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A profound shift is occurring among women working in agriculture - they are increasingly seeing themselves as farmers, not only as the wives or daughters of farmers. In this book, farm women in the northeastern United States describe how they got into farming and became successful entrepreneurs despite the barriers they encountered in agricultural institutions, farming communities, and even their own families. The authors' feminist agrifood systems theory (FAST) values women's ways of knowing and working in agriculture and has the potential to shift how farmers, agricultural professionals, and anyone else interested in farming think about gender and sustainability, as well as to change how feminist scholars and theorists think about agriculture.--COVER.

Download or read book Farming for Our Future written by PETER H.. ROSENBERG LEHNER (NATHAN A.) and published by . This book was released on 2021-12-07 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Farming for Our Future examines the policies and legal reforms necessary to accelerate the adoption of practices that can make agriculture in the United States climate-neutral or better. These proven practices will also make our food system more resilient to the impacts of climate change. Agriculture's contribution to climate change is substantial--much more so than official figures suggest--and we will not be able to achieve our overall mitigation goals unless agricultural emissions sharply decline. Fortunately, farms and ranches can be a major part of the climate solution, while protecting biodiversity, strengthening rural communities, and improving the lives of the workers who cultivate our crops and rear our animals. The importance of agricultural climate solutions can not be underestimated; it is a critical element both in ensuring our food security and limiting climate change. This book provides essential solutions to address the greatest crises of our time.

Download or read book Farms with a Future written by Rebecca Thistlethwaite and published by Chelsea Green Publishing. This book was released on 2012 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Do you want to make your farm more dynamic, profitable, and-- above all-- sustainable? Thistlethwaite introduces readers to some of the country's most innovative farmers, in order to help you build a triple-bottom-line farming business focused on economic viability, social justice, and ecological soundness.

Download or read book The Farmer s Office written by Julia Shanks and published by New Society Publishers. This book was released on 2016-09-01 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A practical, how-to guide for farmers who want to achieve and maintain financial sustainability in their businesses When you decided to become a farmer, you also became an entrepreneur and business person. In order to be ecologically and financially sustainable, you must understand the basics of accounting and bookkeeping, and learn how to manage a growing business. Author Julia Shanks distills years of teaching and business consulting with farmers into this comprehensive, accessible guide. She covers all aspects of launching, running and growing a successful farm business through effective bookkeeping and business management, providing tools to make managerial decisions, apply for a loan or other financing, and offering general business and strategy advice for growing a business. Whether you've been farming for many years or just getting started, The Farmer's Office gives you the tools needed to think like an entrepreneur and thoughtfully manage your business for success.

Download or read book The Lean Farm written by Ben Hartman and published by Chelsea Green Publishing. This book was released on 2015 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A practical, systems-based approach for a more sustainable farming operation To many people today, using the words "factory" and "farm" in the same sentence is nothing short of sacrilege. In many cases, though, the same sound business practices apply whether you are producing cars or carrots. Author Ben Hartman and other young farmers are increasingly finding that incorporating the best new ideas from business into their farming can drastically cut their wastes and increase their profits, making their farms more environmentally and economically sustainable. By explaining the lean system for identifying and eliminating waste and introducing efficiency in every aspect of the farm operation, The Lean Farm makes the case that small-scale farming can be an attractive career option for young people who are interested in growing food for their community. Working smarter, not harder, also prevents the kind of burnout that start-up farmers often encounter in the face of long, hard, backbreaking labor. Lean principles grew out of the Japanese automotive industry, but they are now being followed on progressive farms around the world. Using examples from his own family's one-acre community-supported farm in Indiana, Hartman clearly instructs other small farmers in how to incorporate lean practices in each step of their production chain, from starting a farm and harvesting crops to training employees and selling goods. While the intended audience for this book is small-scale farmers who are part of the growing local food movement, Hartman's prescriptions for high-value, low-cost production apply to farms and businesses of almost any size or scale that hope to harness the power of lean in their production processes.

Download or read book Bet the Farm written by Beth Hoffman and published by Island Press. This book was released on 2021-10-05 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Eloquent and detailed...It's hard to have hope, but the organized observations and plans of Hoffman and people like her give me some. Read her book -- and listen." -- Jane Smiley, The Washington Post In her late 40s, Beth Hoffman decided to upend her comfortable life as a professor and journalist to move to her husband's family ranch in Iowa--all for the dream of becoming a farmer. There was just one problem: money. Half of America's two million farms made less than $300 in 2019, and many struggle just to stay afloat. Bet the Farm chronicles this struggle through Beth's eyes. She must contend with her father-in-law, who is reluctant to hand over control of the land. Growing oats is good for the environment but ends up being very bad for the wallet. And finding somewhere, in the midst of COVID-19, to slaughter grass finished beef is a nightmare. If Beth can't make it, how can farmers who confront racism, lack access to land, or don't have other jobs to fall back on hack it? Bet the Farm is a first-hand account of the perils of farming today and a personal exploration of more just and sustainable ways of producing food.

Download or read book Farm and Other F Words written by Sarah K Mock and published by . This book was released on 2021-04-26 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We love The American Farmer. We trust them to grow our food, to be part of children's nursery rhymes, to provide the economic backbone of rural communities, and to embody a version of the American dream. At the same time, we know that "corporate farms" are disrupting the agrarian way of life that we so admire, and that we've got to do something to stop it. So what's our plan for saving the farms we love? In Farm (and Other F Words), Sarah K Mock dismantles misconceptions about American farms and discovers what makes small family farms work, or why they don't. While exploring the intersection of farming and wealth, Mock offers an alternative perspective on American agricultural history, and outlines a path to a more equitable food system moving forward. Calling for change, Farm (and Other F Words) tackles questions like: Do farmers really get paid not to farm? Are "big corporate farms" the future? How much good has the food movement done for small family farmers? Ultimately, Mock suggests a solution without putting the onus for change on struggling consumers and reminds us that, "the future of American agriculture is not yet decided."

Download or read book Farming for Us All written by Michael Mayerfeld Bell and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2024-02-20 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Climate change. Habitat loss. Soil erosion. Groundwater depletion. Toxins in our food. Inhumane treatment of farm animals. Increasing farm worker exploitation. Hunger and malnutrition in the midst of plenty. What will it take for farmers in the United States to embrace sustainable practices? Michael Mayerfeld Bell’s Farming for Us All first tackled this question twenty years ago, providing crucial insight into how the structure of US agriculture created this situation and exploring, by contrast, the practices of farmers who are working together to radically change how they think, learn, and grow. This updated edition of his now-classic work reflects on the lessons learned over the past two decades. Constrained by an oppressive nexus of markets, regulations, subsidies, and technology, farmers find themselves undermining their own economic and social security as well as the security of the land. Bell turns to Practical Farmers of Iowa (PFI), that state’s largest sustainable-agriculture group. He traces how PFI creates an agriculture that engages others—farmers, researchers, officials, and consumers—in a common conversation about what agriculture could look like. Through dialogue, PFI members crossbreed knowledge, discovering pragmatic solutions to help crops grow in ways that sustain families, communities, societies, economies, and environments. Farming for Us All makes the case that for sustainable farming to flourish, new social relations are as important to cultivate as new crops. This book is necessary—and hopeful—reading for anyone concerned about the present and future of food and farming.

Download or read book Making Local Food Work written by Brandi Janssen and published by University of Iowa Press. This book was released on 2017-04-15 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When it comes to local food, it takes more than “knowing your farmer.” Brandi Janssen takes on some of the myths about how the local food system works and what it needs to thrive. Advocates claim that small biodiverse farms will fundamentally change farming, rural communities, and the American diet. For many, simply by knowing our farmers we become champions of a new way of eating that revolutionizes our economy and society. But that argument ignores the fact that if local food is to succeed, it requires many of the trappings of conventional food production, including processors, middle men, inspectors, and regulators. By listening to and working alongside people trying to build a local food system in Iowa, Janssen uncovers the complex realities of making it work. Although the state is better known for its vast fields of conventionally grown corn and soybeans, it has long boasted a robust network of small, diverse farms, community supported agriculture enterprises, and farmers’ markets. As she picks tomatoes, processes wheatgrass, and joins a parents’ committee trying to buy local lettuce for a school lunch, Janssen asks how small farmers and CSA owners deal with farmers’ market regulations, neighbors who spray pesticides on crops or lawns, and sanitary regulations on meat processing and milk production. How can they meet the needs of large buyers like school districts? Who does the hard work of planting, weeding, harvesting, and processing? Is local food production benefitting rural communities as much as advocates claim? In answering these questions, Janssen displays the pragmatism and level-headedness one would expect of the heartland, much like the farmers and processors profiled here. It’s doable, she states, but we’re going to have to do more than shop at our local farmers’ market to make it happen. This book is an ideal introduction to what local food means today and what it might be tomorrow.

Download or read book Farming for the Long Haul written by Michael Foley and published by Chelsea Green Publishing. This book was released on 2019-02-01 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It’s all but certain that the next fifty years will bring enormous, not to say cataclysmic, disruptions to our present way of life. World oil reserves will be exhausted within that time frame, as will the lithium that powers today’s most sophisticated batteries, suggesting that transportation is equally imperiled. And there’s another, even more dire limitation that is looming: at current rates of erosion, the world’s topsoil will be gone in sixty years. Fresh water sources are in jeopardy, too. In short, the large-scale agricultural and food delivery system as we know it has at most a few decades before it exhausts itself and the planet with it. Farming for the Long Haul is about building a viable small farm economy that can withstand the economic, political, and climatic shock waves that the twenty-first century portends. It draws on the innovative work of contemporary farmers, but more than that, it shares the experiences of farming societies around the world that have maintained resilient agricultural systems over centuries of often-turbulent change. Indigenous agriculturalists, peasants, and traditional farmers have all created broad strategies for survival through good times and bad, and many of them prospered. They also developed particular techniques for managing soil, water, and other resources sustainably. Some of these techniques have been taken up by organic agriculture and permaculture, but many more of them are virtually unknown, even among alternative farmers. This book lays out some of these strategies and presents techniques and tools that might prove most useful to farmers today and in the uncertain future.

Download or read book Farmers Working With Farmers written by Conservation Council of New Brunswick and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 14 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book In Defense of Farmers written by Jane Gibson and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2019-07 with total page 468 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Industrial agriculture is generally characterized as either the salvation of a growing, hungry, global population or as socially and environmentally irresponsible. Despite elements of truth in this polarization, it fails to focus on the particular vulnerabilities and potentials of industrial agriculture. Both representations obscure individual farmers, their families, their communities, and the risks they face from unpredictable local, national, and global conditions: fluctuating and often volatile production costs and crop prices; extreme weather exacerbated by climate change; complicated and changing farm policies; new production technologies and practices; water availability; inflation and debt; and rural community decline. Yet the future of industrial agriculture depends fundamentally on farmers’ decisions. In Defense of Farmers illuminates anew the critical role that farmers play in the future of agriculture and examines the social, economic, and environmental vulnerabilities of industrial agriculture, as well as its adaptations and evolution. Contextualizing the conversations about agriculture and rural societies within the disciplines of sociology, geography, economics, and anthropology, this volume addresses specific challenges farmers face in four countries: Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, and the United States. By concentrating on countries with the most sophisticated production technologies capable of producing the largest quantities of grains, soybeans, and animal proteins in the world, this volume focuses attention on the farmers whose labors, decision-making, and risk-taking throw into relief the implications and limitations of our global industrial food system. The case studies here acknowledge the agency of farmers and offer ways forward in the direction of sustainable agriculture.

Download or read book Farmers On Relief And Rehabilitation written by Berta Asch and published by Da Capo Press, Incorporated. This book was released on 1971-09-21 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Working Farmer written by and published by . This book was released on 1856 with total page 594 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The New American Farmer written by Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2019-11-12 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An examination of Latino/a immigrant farmers as they transition from farmworkers to farm owners that offers a new perspective on racial inequity and sustainable farming. Although the majority of farms in the United States have US-born owners who identify as white, a growing number of new farmers are immigrants, many of them from Mexico, who originally came to the United States looking for work in agriculture. In The New American Farmer, Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern explores the experiences of Latino/a immigrant farmers as they transition from farmworkers to farm owners, offering a new perspective on racial inequity and sustainable farming. She finds that many of these new farmers rely on farming practices from their home countries—including growing multiple crops simultaneously, using integrated pest management, maintaining small-scale production, and employing family labor—most of which are considered alternative farming techniques in the United States. Drawing on extensive interviews with farmers and organizers, Minkoff-Zern describes the social, economic, and political barriers immigrant farmers must overcome, from navigating USDA bureaucracy to racialized exclusion from opportunities. She discusses, among other topics, the history of discrimination against farm laborers in the United States; the invisibility of Latino/a farmers to government and universities; new farmers' sense of agrarian and racial identity; and the future of the agrarian class system. Minkoff-Zern argues that immigrant farmers, with their knowledge and experience of alternative farming practices, are—despite a range of challenges—actively and substantially contributing to the movement for an ecological and sustainable food system. Scholars and food activists should take notice.