Download or read book Tomorrow s Table written by Pamela C. Ronald and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2008-04-18 with total page 228 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 Lost Science of Measuring the Earth written by Robin Heath and published by Adventures Unlimited Press. This book was released on 2006-08 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Long trackways, stone rows, circles, standing stones, and huge earthworks may be found all over Britain, monuments dating back well over 4000 years. The authors have made a remarkable breakthrough in understanding the system by which prehistoric monuments were designed and placed.
Download or read book An Agricultural Testament written by Albert Howard and published by Distant Mirror. This book was released on 2021-04 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why is there a cow on the front cover of this book? This is a book about agriculture, and farm animals have become unfashionable in some quarters. Cows, it turns out, are responsible for global warming, climate change, and so, no doubt, rising sea levels and chemtrails. But any real farmer, from any time in history, knows that this is not true. Animals have been around forever. Animals are a vital part of an insanely complex living system. Anyone who knows the basics of regenerative agriculture understands this. Albert Howard spent years studying and using the methods of traditional Asian agriculture, and shows in this book that the fertility and health of the soil depend on humus, in the production of which animal materials play an vital role. A healthy soil needs animal inputs. Animals in agriculture are central; they're right in there with fungi. This message is not welcomed by those who would feed the modern world a diet of plant-based, lab-grown food substitutes that have lists of ingredients as long as your arm, and are going to save the planet using gene-spliced soybeans and 3D printed pizzas. So, the cow and her calf are on the cover to redress the balance, and also to feature as one of the stars of this book (along with sugar cane, waste pits, and public servants). She was the photogenic one. Albert Howard's text has been thoroughly re-edited in this new version of his book. The habit, common at the time, of using long paragraphs is not preferred by modern readers, so the text has been extensively 'reparagraphed'. Grammar has been tweaked, and styles have been adopted. Headings have been added, infinitives unsplit. The changes made have been to make things more comfortable for modern eyes and tastes. The sense and intention of the author has not been altered at all, of course. We hope that Albert Howard would approve of this reworking of his book. His ideas are more important than ever. Wendell Berry wrote in The Last Whole Earth Catalog "Howard's discoveries and methods, and their implications, are given in detail in An Agricultural Testament. They are of enormous usefulness to gardeners and farmers, and to anyone who may be interested in the history and the problems of land use. But aside from its practical worth, Howard's book is valuable for his ability to place his facts and insights within the perspective of history. This book is a critique of civilisations, judging them not by their artefacts and victories, but by their response to the sacred duty of handing over to the next generation, unimpaired, the heritage of a fertile soil."
Download or read book The Natural Way of Farming written by Masanobu Fukuoka and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ...A natural way of farming that renounces all human knowledge and intervention. - preface.
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 Agrarian Dreams written by Julie Guthman and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2004-08-04 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In an era of escalating food politics, many believe organic farming to be the agrarian answer. In this first comprehensive study of organic farming in California, Julie Guthman casts doubt on the current wisdom about organic food and agriculture, at least as it has evolved in the Golden State. Refuting popular portrayals of organic agriculture as a small-scale family farm endeavor in opposition to "industrial" agriculture, Guthman explains how organic farming has replicated what it set out to oppose.
Download or read book The Global History of Organic Farming written by Gregory A. Barton and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-02-09 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Organic farming is a major global movement that is changing land-use and consumer habits around the world. This book tells the untold story of how the organic farming movement nearly faltered after an initial flurry of scientific interest and popular support. Drawing on newly-unearthed archives, Barton argues that organic farming first gained popularity in an imperial milieu before shifting to the left of the political spectrum after decolonization and served as a crucial middle stage of environmentalism. Modern organic protocols developed in British India under the guidance of Sir Albert Howard before spreading throughout parts of the British Empire, Europe, and the USA through the advocacy of his many followers and his second wife Louise. Organic farming advocates before and during World War II challenged the industrialization of agriculture and its reliance on chemical fertilizers. They came tantalizingly close to influencing government policy. The decolonization of the British Empire, the success of industrial agriculture, and the purging of holistic ideas from medicine side-lined organic farming advocates who were viewed increasingly as cranks and kooks. Organic farming advocates continued to spread their anti-chemical farming message through a small community that deeply influenced Rachel Carson's ideas in Silent Spring, a book that helped to legitimize anti-chemical concerns. The organic farming movement re-entered the scientific mainstream in the 1980s only with the reluctant backing of government policy. It has continued to grow in popularity ever since and explains why organic farming continues to inspire those who seek to align agriculture and health.
Download or read book The Soil Will Save Us written by Kristin Ohlson and published by Rodale. This book was released on 2014-03-18 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thousands of years of poor farming and ranching practices—and, especially, modern industrial agriculture—have led to the loss of up to 80 percent of carbon from the world’s soils. That carbon is now floating in the atmosphere, and even if we stopped using fossil fuels today, it would continue warming the planet. In The Soil Will Save Us, journalist and bestselling author Kristin Ohlson makes an elegantly argued, passionate case for "our great green hope"—a way in which we can not only heal the land but also turn atmospheric carbon into beneficial soil carbon—and potentially reverse global warming. As the granddaughter of farmers and the daughter of avid gardeners, Ohlson has long had an appreciation for the soil. A chance conversation with a local chef led her to the crossroads of science, farming, food, and environmentalism and the discovery of the only significant way to remove carbon dioxide from the air—an ecological approach that tends not only to plants and animals but also to the vast population of underground microorganisms that fix carbon in the soil. Ohlson introduces the visionaries—scientists, farmers, ranchers, and landscapers—who are figuring out in the lab and on the ground how to build healthy soil, which solves myriad problems: drought, erosion, air and water pollution, and food quality, as well as climate change. Her discoveries and vivid storytelling will revolutionize the way we think about our food, our landscapes, our plants, and our relationship to Earth.
Download or read book Farmers of Forty Centuries or Permanent Agriculture in China Korea and Japan written by F. H. King and published by Global Oriental. This book was released on 2011-04-06 with total page 457 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 1926, this classic survey, which includes nearly 250 photographs, examines the traditional farming methods of the densely populated lands of China, Korea and Japan and shows how fertility can be maintained over many centuries through conserving and utilizing natural resources. In the Introduction, the author notes: ‘The United States as yet a nation of but few people widely scattered over a broad virgin land with more than twenty acres to the support of every man, woman and child, while the people whose practices are to be considered are toiling in fields tilled more than three thousand years and who have scarcely more than two acres per capita, more than one-half of which is uncultivable land.’ Researchers and scholars in the fields of human geography, regional studies and earth sciences, as well as social and economic history will welcome this landmark study being returned to print.
Download or read book Restoration Agriculture written by Mark Shepard and published by Acres U.S.A., Incorporated. This book was released on 2013 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Around the globe most people get their calories from "annual" agriculture - plants that grow fast for one season, produce lots of seeds, then die. Every single human society that has relied on annual crops for staple foods has collapsed. Restoration Agriculture explains how we can have all of the benefits of natural, perennial ecosystems and create agricultural systems that imitate nature in form and function while still providing for our food, building, fuel and many other needs - in your own backyard, farm or ranch. This book, based on real-world practices, presents an alternative to the agriculture system of eradication and offers exciting hope for our future.
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 257 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 The One Straw Revolution written by Masanobu Fukuoka and published by New York Review of Books. This book was released on 2010-09-08 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Call it “Zen and the Art of Farming” or a “Little Green Book,” Masanobu Fukuoka’s manifesto about farming, eating, and the limits of human knowledge presents a radical challenge to the global systems we rely on for our food. At the same time, it is a spiritual memoir of a man whose innovative system of cultivating the earth reflects a deep faith in the wholeness and balance of the natural world. As Wendell Berry writes in his preface, the book “is valuable to us because it is at once practical and philosophical. It is an inspiring, necessary book about agriculture because it is not just about agriculture.” Trained as a scientist, Fukuoka rejected both modern agribusiness and centuries of agricultural practice, deciding instead that the best forms of cultivation mirror nature’s own laws. Over the next three decades he perfected his so-called “do-nothing” technique: commonsense, sustainable practices that all but eliminate the use of pesticides, fertilizer, tillage, and perhaps most significantly, wasteful effort. Whether you’re a guerrilla gardener or a kitchen gardener, dedicated to slow food or simply looking to live a healthier life, you will find something here—you may even be moved to start a revolution of your own.
Download or read book Seeds of Science written by Mark Lynas and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2018-04-05 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Fluent, persuasive and surely right.' Evening Standard The inside story of the fight for and against genetic modification in food. Mark Lynas was one of the original GM field wreckers. Back in the 1990s – working undercover with his colleagues in the environmental movement – he would descend on trial sites of genetically modified crops at night and hack them to pieces. Two decades later, most people around the world – from New York to China – still think that 'GMO' foods are bad for their health or likely to damage the environment. But Mark has changed his mind. This book explains why. In 2013, in a world-famous recantation speech, Mark apologised for having destroyed GM crops. He spent the subsequent years touring Africa and Asia, and working with plant scientists who are using this technology to help smallholder farmers in developing countries cope better with pests, diseases and droughts. This book lifts the lid on the anti-GMO craze and shows how science was left by the wayside as a wave of public hysteria swept the world. Mark takes us back to the origins of the technology and introduces the scientific pioneers who invented it. He explains what led him to question his earlier assumptions about GM food, and talks to both sides of this fractious debate to see what still motivates worldwide opposition today. In the process he asks – and answers – the killer question: how did we all get it so wrong on GMOs? 'An important contribution to an issue with enormous potential for benefiting humanity.' Stephen Pinker 'I warmly recommend it.' Philip Pullman
Download or read book The Dirty Life written by Kristin Kimball and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2011-04-12 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After interviewing a young farmer, writer Kristen Kimball gave up her urban lifestyle to begin a farm with her interviewee near Lake Champlain in northern New York.
Download or read book The Omnivore s Dilemma written by Michael Pollan and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2007-08-28 with total page 481 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Outstanding . . . a wide-ranging invitation to think through the moral ramifications of our eating habits." —The New Yorker One of the New York Times Book Review's Ten Best Books of the Year and Winner of the James Beard Award Author of This is Your Mind on Plants, How to Change Your Mind and the #1 New York Times Bestseller In Defense of Food and Food Rules What should we have for dinner? Ten years ago, Michael Pollan confronted us with this seemingly simple question and, with The Omnivore’s Dilemma, his brilliant and eye-opening exploration of our food choices, demonstrated that how we answer it today may determine not only our health but our survival as a species. In the years since, Pollan’s revolutionary examination has changed the way Americans think about food. Bringing wide attention to the little-known but vitally important dimensions of food and agriculture in America, Pollan launched a national conversation about what we eat and the profound consequences that even the simplest everyday food choices have on both ourselves and the natural world. Ten years later, The Omnivore’s Dilemma continues to transform the way Americans think about the politics, perils, and pleasures of eating.
Download or read book The Science Beneath Organic Production written by David Atkinson and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2019-07-22 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A groundbreaking book that addresses the science that underpins organic agriculture and horticulture and its impact upon the management of organic systems With contributions from noted experts in the field, Organic Agriculture explores the cultural context of food production and examines the historical aspects, economic implications, and key scientific elements that underpin organic crop production. The book shows how a science-based approach to organic farming is grounded in history and elements of the social sciences as well as the more traditional areas of physics, chemistry and biology. Organic Agriculture offers a detailed explanation of the differences between organic systems and other approaches, answering questions about crop production and protection, crop rotations, soil health, biodiversity and the use of genetic resources. The authors identify current gaps in our understanding of the topic and discuss how organic farming research may be better accomplished in the future. This important book: Explores the science that underpins organic farming Contains illustrative case studies from around the world Examines organic agriculture’s philosophical roots and its socio-economic context Written for scientists and students of agriculture and horticulture, this book covers the issues linked to the use of science by organic producers and identifies key elements in the production of food.
Download or read book The World of Organic Agriculture written by Minou Yussefi-Menzler and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2010-09-23 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The new edition of this annual publication (previously published solely by IFOAM and FiBL) documents recent developments in global organic agriculture. It includes contributions from representatives of the organic sector from throughout the world and provides comprehensive organic farming statistics that cover surface area under organic management, numbers of farms and specific information about commodities and land use in organic systems. The book also contains information on the global market of the burgeoning organic sector, the latest developments in organic certification, standards and regulations, and insights into current status and emerging trends for organic agriculture by continent from the worlds foremost experts. For this edition, all statistical data and regional review chapters have been thoroughly updated. Completely new chapters on organic agriculture in the Pacific, on the International Task Force on Harmonization and Equivalence in Organic Agriculture and on organic aquaculture have been added. Published with IFOAM and FiBL
