Download or read book Seed of the Future written by Dayton Duncan and published by Yosemite Conservancy. This book was released on 2013-11-26 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It's now a given that Americans—and people the world over—would seek to preserve their sacred, special places. One hundred fifty years ago, however, it was definitely not a foregone conclusion that the awe-inspiring granite cliffs, astounding waterfalls, and sublime sequoias of Yosemite would be protected. This idea of preservation was the national park idea; an idea that started from a seed, a seed that was planted in Yosemite. It was through the efforts of people like James Mason Hutchings, Galen Clark, Frederick Law Olmsted, John Muir, and Theodore Roosevelt among others that the world learned of Yosemite, flocked to it, nearly destroyed it, and ultimately saved it. These fascinating characters and their remarkable stories are skillfully woven together in this beautiful volume, created expressly to capture the wonder of Yosemite and to inspire future generations to do their part for wild places.
Download or read book Seed Money Monsanto s Past and Our Food Future written by Bartow J. Elmore and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2021-10-12 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An authoritative and eye-opening history that examines how Monsanto came to have outsized influence over our food system. Monsanto, a St. Louis chemical firm that became the world’s largest maker of genetically engineered seeds, merged with German pharma-biotech giant Bayer in 2018—but its Roundup Ready® seeds, introduced twenty-five years ago, are still reshaping the farms that feed us. When researchers found trace amounts of the firm’s blockbuster herbicide in breakfast cereal bowls, Monsanto faced public outcry. Award-winning historian Bartow J. Elmore shows how the Roundup story is just one of the troubling threads of Monsanto’s past, many told here and woven together for the first time. A company employee sitting on potentially explosive information who weighs risking everything to tell his story. A town whose residents are urged to avoid their basements because Monsanto’s radioactive waste laces their homes’ foundations. Factory workers who peel off layers of their skin before accepting cash bonuses to continue dirty jobs. An executive wrestling with the ethics of selling a profitable product he knew was toxic. Incorporating global fieldwork, interviews with company employees, and untapped corporate and government records, Elmore traces Monsanto’s astounding evolution from a scrappy chemical startup to a global agribusiness powerhouse. Monsanto used seed money derived from toxic products—including PCBs and Agent Orange—to build an agricultural empire, promising endless bounty through its genetically engineered technology. Skyrocketing sales of Monsanto’s new Roundup Ready system stunned even those in the seed trade, who marveled at the influx of cash and lavish incentives into their sleepy sector. But as new data emerges about the Roundup system, and as Bayer faces a tide of lawsuits over Monsanto products past and present, Elmore’s urgent history shows how our food future is still very much tethered to the company’s chemical past.
Download or read book Manifestos on the Future of Food Seed written by Vandana Shiva and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An urgent call to strengthen and unify the movements to save seeds, food, and our future.
Download or read book Shaping Your Future written by Barry Bennett and published by Destiny Image Publishers. This book was released on 2021-08-17 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Future Is in a Seed You are the one who shapes your future! No matter how you’ve lived up until now, your past cannot derail your future because God’s potential lives in you! In Shaping Your Future, author and teacher Barry Bennett explains that God has entrusted each of us with the ability to grow our own future...
Download or read book Tomorrow s Table written by Pamela C. Ronald and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2010-01-08 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By the year 2050, Earth's population will double. If we continue with current farming practices, vast amounts of wilderness will be lost, millions of birds and billions of insects will die, and the public will lose billions of dollars as a consequence of environmental degradation. Clearly, there must be a better way to meet the need for increased food production. Written as part memoir, part instruction, and part contemplation, Tomorrow's Table argues that a judicious blend of two important strands of agriculture--genetic engineering and organic farming--is key to helping feed the world's growing population in an ecologically balanced manner. Pamela Ronald, a geneticist, and her husband, Raoul Adamchak, an organic farmer, take the reader inside their lives for roughly a year, allowing us to look over their shoulders so that we can see what geneticists and organic farmers actually do. The reader sees the problems that farmers face, trying to provide larger yields without resorting to expensive or environmentally hazardous chemicals, a problem that will loom larger and larger as the century progresses. They learn how organic farmers and geneticists address these problems. This book is for consumers, farmers, and policy decision makers who want to make food choices and policy that will support ecologically responsible farming practices. It is also for anyone who wants accurate information about organic farming, genetic engineering, and their potential impacts on human health and the environment.
Download or read book The Seed Garden written by Lee Buttala and published by Seed Savers Exchange. This book was released on 2015-05-04 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the American Horticultural Society Award for Excellence In Garden Book Publishing Winner of the Silver Medal for Best Reference from the Garden Writer’s Association Filled with advice for the home gardener and the more seasoned horticulturist alike, The Seed Garden: The Art and Practice of Seed Saving provides straightforward instruction on collecting seed that is true-to-type and ready for sowing in next year’s garden. In this comprehensive book, Seed Savers Exchange, one of the foremost American authorities on the subject, and the Organic Seed Alliance bring together decades of knowledge to demystify the time-honored tradition of saving the seed of more than seventy-five coveted vegetable and herb crops—from heirloom tomatoes and long-favored varieties of beans, lettuces, and cabbages to centuries-old varieties of peppers and grains. With clear instructions, lush photographs, and easy-to-comprehend profiles on individual vegetable crops, this book not only teaches us how to go about conserving these important varieties for future generations and for planting out in next year’s garden, it also provides a deeper understanding of the importance of saving these genetically valuable varieties of vegetables that have evolved over the centuries through careful selection by farmers and home gardeners. Through simple lessons and master classes on crop selection, pollination, roguing, and the processes of harvesting and storing seeds, this book ensures that these time-honored traditions can continue. Many of these vegetable varieties are treasured for traits that are singular to their strain, whether that is a resistance to disease, an ability to grow well in a region for which that crop is not typically well suited, resistance to early bolting, or simply because it is a great-tasting variety. In an age of genetically modified crops and hybrid seed, a growing appreciation for saving seeds of these time-tested, open-pollinated cultivars has found a new audience from home vegetable gardeners and cooks to restaurant chefs and local farmers. Whether interested in simply saving seeds for home use or working to conserve rare varieties of beloved squashes and tomatoes, this book provides a deeper understanding of the art, the science, and the joy of saving seeds.
Download or read book Seeds on Ice Svalbard and the Global Seed Vault written by Cary Fowler and published by Prospecta Press. This book was released on 2024-04-23 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The remarkable story of the Global Seed Vault--and the valiant effort to save the past and the future of agriculture: Now updated with a new chapter by the author and photos from recent improvements in the facilities. Closer to the North Pole than to the Arctic Circle, on an island in a remote Norwegian archipelago, lies a vast global seed bank buried within a frozen mountain. At the end of a 130-meter long tunnel chiseled out of solid stone is a room filled with humanity's precious treasure, the largest and most diverse seed collection ever assembled: more than a half billion seeds containing the world's most prized crops, a safeguard against catastrophic starvation. The Global Seed Vault, a visionary model of international collaboration, is the brainchild of Cary Fowler, renowned scientist, conservationist, and biodiversity advocate. In SEEDS ON ICE, Fowler tells for the first time the comprehensive inside story of how the "doomsday seed vault" came to be, while the breathtaking photographs offer a stunning guided tour not only of the private vault, but of the windswept beauty and majesty of Svalbard and the enchanting community of people in Longyearbyen. With growing evidence that unchecked climate change will seriously undermine food production and threaten the diversity of crops around the world, SEEDS ON ICE offers a personal and passionate reminder that we shouldn't take our reliance on the world of plants for granted--and that, in a very real sense, the future of the human race rides on this frozen and indispensable biodiversity.
Download or read book The Seed Underground written by Janisse Ray and published by Chelsea Green Publishing. This book was released on 2012-07-06 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There is no despair in a seed. There's only life, waiting for the right conditions-sun and water, warmth and soil-to be set free. Everyday, millions upon millions of seeds lift their two green wings. At no time in our history have Americans been more obsessed with food. Options including those for local, sustainable, and organic food-seem limitless. And yet, our food supply is profoundly at risk. Farmers and gardeners a century ago had five times the possibilities of what to plant than farmers and gardeners do today; we are losing untold numbers of plant varieties to genetically modified industrial monocultures. In her latest work of literary nonfiction, award-winning author and activist Janisse Ray argues that if we are to secure the future of food, we first must understand where it all begins: the seed. The Seed Underground is a journey to the frontier of seed-saving. It is driven by stories, both the author's own and those from people who are waging a lush and quiet revolution in thousands of gardens across America to preserve our traditional cornucopia of food by simply growing old varieties and eating them. The Seed Underground pays tribute to time-honored and threatened varieties, deconstructs the politics and genetics of seeds, and reveals the astonishing characters who grow, study, and save them.
Download or read book Seed to Seed written by Suzanne Ashworth and published by Chelsea Green Publishing. This book was released on 2012-10-31 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A complete seed-saving guide of 160 vegetables, including detailed info on each vegetable.
Download or read book Principles of Seed Science and Technology written by Lawrence O. Copeland and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 422 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Third Edition of Principles of Seed Science and Technology. like the first two editions. is written for the advanced undergraduate student or lay person who desires an introduction to the science and technology ofseeds. The first eight chapters presentthe seed as abiologicalsystemand coverits origin. development. composition. function (and sometimes nonfunctionJ, performance and ultimate deterioration. The last seven chapters present the fundamentals ofhow seedsare produced. conditioned. evaluated and distributed in our modern agricultural society. A new chapter on seed enhancement has been added to reflect the significant advancements made in the last 10 years on new physiological and molecular biology techniques to further enhance seed performance. Because of the fundamental importance of seeds to both agriculture and to all of society. we have taken great care to present the science and technology of seeds with the respect and feeling this study deserves. We hope that this feeling will becommuni cated to our readers. Furthermore. we have attempted to present information in a straight-forward. easy-to-read manner that will be easily understood by students and lay persons alike. Special care has been taken to address both current state-of-the-art as well as future trends in seed technology. . We believe this Third Edition represents a new level in presenting information that appeals to advanced undergraduate students as well as to those desiring more fundamental information on seed form and function. At the same time. it continues to havethestrengths ofthe firsttwoeditions.initsreadabilityaswellas itscomprehensive coverage of the broader area of seed science and technology.
Download or read book Recent Advances in the Development and Germination of Seeds written by R.B. Taylorson and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: These Proceedings are a product of the International Workshop on Seeds held in Williamsburg, Virginia, USA, at the College of William and Mary, during the week of August 6-11, 1989. Sixty-eight participants attended. The location provided a scenic and historical setting for the excellent work presented. Good facilities and amenities also contributed to the success of the meeting. The Proceedings present the substance of the main lectures given at this meeting. In addition, there were 29 brief paper presentations and 30 poster presentations which have been summarized in abstract form in a separate publication. This meeting represents the third such meeting of a diverse group of scientists interested in the behavior of seeds, both in an agricultural sense and as tools for the advancement of more particular s~bject matter. The first meeting was held in Jerusalem, Israel in 1980 and the second in Wageningen, The Netherlands in 1985. A fourth meeting is being planned. The Editor and Organizer wishes to thank not only the contributors to this volume for their efforts but also all the other participants whose combined efforts made this meeting a great success.
Download or read book The Seed Keeper written by Diane Wilson and published by Milkweed Editions. This book was released on 2021-03-09 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A haunting novel spanning several generations, The Seed Keeper follows a Dakhóta family’s struggle to preserve their way of life, and their sacrifices to protect what matters most. Rosalie Iron Wing has grown up in the woods with her father, Ray, a former science teacher who tells her stories of plants, of the stars, of the origins of the Dakhóta people. Until, one morning, Ray doesn’t return from checking his traps. Told she has no family, Rosalie is sent to live with a foster family in nearby Mankato—where the reserved, bookish teenager meets rebellious Gaby Makespeace, in a friendship that transcends the damaged legacies they’ve inherited. On a winter’s day many years later, Rosalie returns to her childhood home. A widow and mother, she has spent the previous two decades on her white husband’s farm, finding solace in her garden even as the farm is threatened first by drought and then by a predatory chemical company. Now, grieving, Rosalie begins to confront the past, on a search for family, identity, and a community where she can finally belong. In the process, she learns what it means to be descended from women with souls of iron—women who have protected their families, their traditions, and a precious cache of seeds through generations of hardship and loss, through war and the insidious trauma of boarding schools. Weaving together the voices of four indelible women, The Seed Keeper is a beautifully told story of reawakening, of remembering our original relationship to the seeds and, through them, to our ancestors.
Download or read book The Organic Seed Grower written by John Navazio and published by Chelsea Green Publishing. This book was released on 2012-12-17 with total page 410 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now in Paperback “A fantastic guide for organic seed breeders and producers. [Navazio] has taken organic seed production to a higher level.” —Suzanne Ashworth, author of Seed to Seed The Organic Seed Grower is a comprehensive manual for the serious vegetable grower who is interested in growing high-quality seeds using organic farming practices. It is written for both home seed savers and diversified small-scale farmers who want to learn the necessary steps involved in successfully producing a seed crop organically. Detailed profiles for each of the major vegetables provide users with practical, in-depth knowledge about growing, harvesting, and processing seed for a wide range of common and specialty vegetable crops, from Asian greens to zucchini. In addition, readers will find extensive and critical information on topics including: • Seed-borne diseases • The reproductive biology of crop plants • Annual vs. biennial seed crops • Isolation distances needed to ensure varietal purity • Maintaining adequate population size for genetic integrity • Seed crop climates • Seed cleaning basics • Seed storage for farmers • and more . . . This book can serve as a bridge to lead skilled gardeners, who are already saving their own seed, into the idea of growing seed commercially. And for diversified vegetable farmers who are growing a seed crop for sale for the first time, it will provide details on many of the tricks of the trade that are used by professional seed growers. This manual will help the budding seed farmer to become more knowledgeable, efficient, and effective in producing a commercially viable seed crop. Written by well-known plant breeder and organic seed expert John Navazio, The Organic Seed Grower is the most useful guide to best practices in this exciting and important field.
Download or read book The Final Empire written by Wm. H. Kötke and published by AuthorHouse. This book was released on 2007-11 with total page 653 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In spite of its tough message, there is much compassion and humanity in The Final Empire. Right away as you begin to read this work, you sense increasingly the grand perspective in Kötke's words. He is not speaking of anarchy. He is offering vital common sense. It's just that his meaning is so unavoidably political. And so much against what we have been taught all our lives: The materialistic values of civilization teach us that the accumulation of wealth is progress. The material wealth of the civilization is derived from the death of the earth, the soils, the forests, the fish stocks, the 'free resources' of flora and fauna. The ultimate end of this is for all human species to live in giant parasitical cities of cement and metal while surrounded by deserts of exhausted soils. The simple polar opposites are: the richness and wealth of the natural life of earth versus the material wealth of people living out their lives in artificial environments. This amounts to a direct challenge to humankind. A demand for radical change. A re-envisioning of our part in the community of life and the precepts of individuality. And Mr. Kötke provides a strong argument for this case. He traces the environmental scars of civilization through the ages. Empire after empire, desertification of the top soil winds its way around the globe in an erosive helix from China to India to Mesopotamia to Italy to North America. As radical as it may seem at first glance, The Final Empire is a necessary and sensible primer for the recovery of the planet. It blends a critical statistical analysis of our deteriorating environment with a positivism of hope for a post-empire age and a new whole-human relation to the living community of Earth. Dan Armstrong, Author of the Novels, Prairie Fire and Taming the Dragon
Download or read book Where Our Food Comes From written by Gary Paul Nabhan and published by Island Press. This book was released on 2012-02-13 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The future of our food depends on tiny seeds in orchards and fields the world over. In 1943, one of the first to recognize this fact, the great botanist Nikolay Vavilov, lay dying of starvation in a Soviet prison. But in the years before Stalin jailed him as a scapegoat for the country’s famines, Vavilov had traveled over five continents, collecting hundreds of thousands of seeds in an effort to outline the ancient centers of agricultural diversity and guard against widespread hunger. Now, another remarkable scientist—and vivid storyteller—has retraced his footsteps. In Where Our Food Comes From, Gary Paul Nabhan weaves together Vavilov’s extraordinary story with his own expeditions to Earth’s richest agricultural landscapes and the cultures that tend them. Retracing Vavilov’s path from Mexico and the Colombian Amazon to the glaciers of the Pamirs in Tajikistan, he draws a vibrant portrait of changes that have occurred since Vavilov’s time and why they matter. In his travels, Nabhan shows how climate change, free trade policies, genetic engineering, and loss of traditional knowledge are threatening our food supply. Through discussions with local farmers, visits to local outdoor markets, and comparison of his own observations in eleven countries to those recorded in Vavilov’s journals and photos, Nabhan reveals just how much diversity has already been lost. But he also shows what resilient farmers and scientists in many regions are doing to save the remaining living riches of our world. It is a cruel irony that Vavilov, a man who spent his life working to foster nutrition, ultimately died from lack of it. In telling his story, Where Our Food Comes From brings to life the intricate relationships among culture, politics, the land, and the future of the world’s food.
Download or read book Seed Policy and Programmes in Latin America and the Caribbean written by and published by Food & Agriculture Org.. This book was released on 2001 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The meeting recognised the need for the sustainable use of plant genetic resources for sustainable agricultural development of the region. Discussions focused on the appropriate mechanisms required to ensure capacity for the maintenance, production and equitable distribution of good quality seeds from a wide range of plant varieties. The meeting agreed to establish the Seed Consultative Forum for Latin America and the Caribbean.
Download or read book Uncertain Peril written by Claire Hope Cummings and published by Beacon Press. This book was released on 2009-03-01 with total page 189 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Life on earth is facing unprecedented challenges from global warming, war, and mass extinctions. The plight of seeds is a less visible but no less fundamental threat to our survival. Seeds are at the heart of the planet's life-support systems. Their power to regenerate and adapt are essential to maintaining our food supply and our ability to cope with a changing climate. In Uncertain Peril, environmental journalist Claire Hope Cummings exposes the stories behind the rise of industrial agriculture and plant biotechnology, the fall of public interest science, and the folly of patenting seeds. She examines how farming communities are coping with declining water, soil, and fossil fuels, as well as with new commercial technologies. Will genetically engineered and "terminator" seeds lead to certain promise, as some have hoped, or are we embarking on a path of uncertain peril? Will the "doomsday vault" under construction in the Arctic, designed to store millions of seeds, save the genetic diversity of the world's agriculture? To answer these questions and others, Cummings takes readers from the Fertile Crescent in Iraq to the island of Kaua'i in Hawai'i; from Oaxaca, Mexico, to the Mekong Delta in Vietnam. She examines the plight of farmers who have planted transgenic seeds and scientists who have been persecuted for revealing the dangers of modified genes. At each turn, Cummings looks deeply into the relationship between people and plants. She examines the possibilities for both scarcity and abundance and tells the stories of local communities that are producing food and fuel sustainably and providing for the future. The choices we make about how we feed ourselves now will determine whether or not seeds will continue as a generous source of sustenance and remain the common heritage of all humanity. It comes down to this: whoever controls the future of seeds controls the future of life on earth. Uncertain Peril is a powerful reminder that what's at stake right now is nothing less than the nature of the future.
