Download or read book Farming Futures written by C. Shambu Prasad and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-04-27 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book studies the management challenges and possibilities in sustaining farmer producer organisations (FPOs). It goes beyond the conventional metrics of cost-benefit analysis by drawing on 15 case studies of diverse FPOs spread across India to fill a significant knowledge-practice gap in the domain of producer collectives. The book explores issues of ownership and governance, studies the empirical basis for policy decisions on FPOs, and provides actionable insights and knowledge, keeping in mind the complexity of the institutional design of an FPO. It also discusses the envisioned role of civil society organisations in supporting FPOs and looks at the kind of institutional innovations that are needed to create a cohesive ecosystem for FPOs. A unique collaborative project jointly authored by academics and development practitioners, the book will be of use to students and researchers of agricultural economics, environment and business, agricultural development, environmental economics, rural studies, entrepreneurship, and South Asian studies. It will also be of interest to development professionals, civil society organisations, and policymakers.
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 A Small Farm Future written by Chris Smaje and published by Chelsea Green Publishing. This book was released on 2020-10-22 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A modern classic of the new agrarianism "Chris Smaje...shows that the choice is clear. Either we have a small farm future, or we face collapse and extinction."—Vandana Shiva "Every young person should read this book."—Richard Heinberg In a groundbreaking debut, farmer and social scientist Chris Smaje argues that organizing society around small-scale farming offers the soundest, sanest and most reasonable response to climate change and other crises of civilisation—and will yield humanity’s best chance at survival. Drawing on a vast range of sources from across a multitude of disciplines, A Small Farm Future analyses the complex forces that make societal change inevitable; explains how low-carbon, locally self-reliant agrarian communities can empower us to successfully confront these changes head on; and explores the pathways for delivering this vision politically. Challenging both conventional wisdom and utopian blueprints, A Small Farm Future offers rigorous original analysis of wicked problems and hidden opportunities in a way that illuminates the path toward functional local economies, effective self-provisioning, agricultural diversity and a shared earth. Perfect for readers of both Wendell Berry and Thomas Piketty, A Small Farm Future is a refreshing, new outlook on a way forward for society—and a vital resource for activists, students, policy makers, and anyone looking to enact change.
Download or read book Cities Farming for the Future written by International Development Research Centre (Canada) and published by IDRC. This book was released on 2014-05-14 with total page 474 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Farming on the Wild Side written by Nancy J. Hayden and published by Chelsea Green Publishing. This book was released on 2019-09-19 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One farm’s decades-long journey into regenerative agriculture—and how these methods enhance biodiversity, pollinators, and soil health Northern Vermont’s Nancy and John Hayden have spent the last 25 years transforming their draft horse–powered, organic vegetable and livestock operation into an agroecological, regenerative, biodiverse, organic fruit farm, fruit nursery, and pollinator sanctuary. In Farming on the Wild Side they explain the philosophical and scientific principles that influenced them as they phased out sheep and potatoes and embraced apples, pears, stone fruits, and a wide variety of uncommon berry crops; turned much of their property into a semi-wild state; and adapted their marketing and sales strategies to the new century. As the Haydens pursued their goals of enhancing biodiversity and regenerating their land, they incorporated agroforestry and permaculture principles into perennial fruit polycultures, a pollinator sanctuary, repurposed greenhouses for growing fruit, hügelkultur, and ecological “pest” management. Beyond the practical techniques and tips, this book also inspires readers to develop greater ecological literacy and respect for the mysteries of the global ecosystem. Farming on the Wild Side tells a story about new ways to manage small farms and homesteads, about nurturing land, about ecology, about economics, and about things that we can all do to heal both the land and ourselves.
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 Future Harvest written by Jim Bender and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 1994-01-01 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From his own farming experience in Weeping Water, Nebraska, Jim Bender addresses in Future Harvest the crucial issues involved in developing a viable commercial pesticide-free farm with emphasis upon soil and water conservation. He examines the context of contemporary alternative agriculture, provides a rationale for the goal of complete freedom from pesticides, and offers a detailed description of practical steps for farmers wishing to do the same. Bender's comparative analysis of alternative and conventional farming systems focuses on convenience, management, conservation, productivity, and economic performance. He also identifies and responds to several central arguments against pesticide-free farming. A central objective throughout the book is to demonstrate both the practical and the conceptual plausibility of pesticide-free farming. The author also addresses the crucial role of livestock in pesticide-free farming. The discussion combines practical and theoretical topics, such as whether alternative farming would require too much livestock.
Download or read book Future Scenarios written by David Holmgren and published by Chelsea Green Publishing. This book was released on 2012-04-04 with total page 138 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Future Scenarios, permaculture co-originator and leading sustainability innovator David Holmgren outlines four scenarios that bring to life the likely cultural, political, agricultural, and economic implications of peak oil and climate change, and the generations-long era of “energy descent” that faces us. “Scenario planning,” Holmgren explains, “allows us to use stories about the future as a reference point for imagining how particular strategies and structures might thrive, fail, or be transformed.” Future Scenarios depicts four very different futures. Each is a permutation of mild or destructive climate change, combined with either slow or severe energy declines. Probable futures, explains Holmgren, range from the relatively benign Green Tech scenario to the near catastrophic Lifeboats scenario. As Adam Grubb, founder of the influential Energy Bulletin website, says, “These aren’t two-dimensional nightmarish scenarios designed to scare people into environmental action. They are compellingly fleshed-out visions of quite plausible alternative futures, which delve into energy, politics, agriculture, social, and even spiritual trends. What they do help make clear are the best strategies for preparing for and adapting to these possible futures.” Future Scenarios provides brilliant and balanced consideration of the world’s options and will prove to be one of the most important books of the year.
Download or read book The Nature of the Future written by Emily Pawley and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2022-06-07 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In the seemingly mundane Northern farm of early America and the people who sought to improve its productivity and efficiency, Emily Pawley finds a world rich with innovative practices and marked by a developing interrelationship between scientific knowledge, industrial methods, and capitalism. Agricultural "improvers" became increasingly scientistic, driving tremendous increases in the range and volume of agricultural output-and transforming American conceptions of expertise, success, and exploitation. Pawley's focus on soil, fertilizer, apples, mulberries, agricultural fairs, and experimental stations shows each nominally dull subject to have been an area of intellectual ferment and sharp contestation: mercantile, epistemological, and otherwise"--
Download or read book Agriculture s Futures written by L.Tim Wallace and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 102 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
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 Alternative Futures for U S Agriculture written by United States. Department of Agriculture. Office of Planning and Evaluation and published by . This book was released on 1975 with total page 106 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Foodopoly written by Wenonah Hauter and published by New Press, The. This book was released on 2015-04-07 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A meticulously researched tour de force” on politics, big agriculture, and the need to go beyond farmers’ markets to find fixes (Publishers Weekly). Wenonah Hauter owns an organic family farm that provides healthy vegetables to hundreds of families as part of the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) movement. Yet, as a leading healthy-food advocate, Hauter believes that the local food movement is not enough to solve America’s food crisis and the public health debacle it has created. In Foodopoly, she takes aim at the real culprit: the control of food production by a handful of large corporations—backed by political clout—that prevents farmers from raising healthy crops and limits the choices people can make in the grocery store. Blending history, reporting, and a deep understanding of farming and food production, Foodopoly is a shocking, revealing account of the business behind the meat, vegetables, grains, and milk most Americans eat every day, including some of our favorite and most respected organic and health-conscious brands. Hauter also pulls the curtain back from the little-understood but vital realm of agricultural policy, showing how it has been hijacked by lobbyists, driving out independent farmers and food processors in favor of the likes of Cargill, Tyson, Kraft, and ConAgra. Foodopoly shows how the impacts ripple far and wide, from economic stagnation in rural communities to famines overseas, and argues that solving this crisis will require a complete structural shift—a change that is about politics, not just personal choice.
Download or read book Freedom Farmers written by Monica M. White and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2018-11-06 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In May 1967, internationally renowned activist Fannie Lou Hamer purchased forty acres of land in the Mississippi Delta, launching the Freedom Farms Cooperative (FFC). A community-based rural and economic development project, FFC would grow to over 600 acres, offering a means for local sharecroppers, tenant farmers, and domestic workers to pursue community wellness, self-reliance, and political resistance. Life on the cooperative farm presented an alternative to the second wave of northern migration by African Americans--an opportunity to stay in the South, live off the land, and create a healthy community based upon building an alternative food system as a cooperative and collective effort. Freedom Farmers expands the historical narrative of the black freedom struggle to embrace the work, roles, and contributions of southern Black farmers and the organizations they formed. Whereas existing scholarship generally views agriculture as a site of oppression and exploitation of black people, this book reveals agriculture as a site of resistance and provides a historical foundation that adds meaning and context to current conversations around the resurgence of food justice/sovereignty movements in urban spaces like Detroit, Chicago, Milwaukee, New York City, and New Orleans.
Download or read book Organic Futures written by Connor J. Fitzmaurice and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2016-10-25 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An exploration of the lived experience of small-scale organic farmers in New England that unpacks how they balance their ideals with economic realities In recent years, the popularity of organically grown produce has exploded. In 2014, organic fruits and vegetables accounted for 12% of all produce sales in the United States, with $39 billion in consumer sales reported for 2015. As a federally recognized niche market within the agricultural mainstream, organic farming is increasingly on display in American grocery stores. Yet the organic food most Americans consume today is produced by an industrial food system at odds with the practices and ideals of small-scale farmers. Taking an ethnographic approach, the fieldwork by Connor Fitzmaurice and Brian Gareau at a small New England organic farm sheds light on how farmers navigate the difficult terrain between practices of sustainability and the economic realities of contemporary agriculture. Drawing on extensive research, Fitzmaurice and Gareau examine the historical context, complexities, and viability of nonconventional organic farming practices: practices that seek to balance ecology and community with the business of agriculture.
Download or read book Future of Sustainable Agriculture in Saline Environments written by Katarzyna Negacz and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2021-06-24 with total page 541 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Food production on present and future saline soils deserves the world’s attention particularly because food security is a pressing issue, millions of hectares of degraded soils are available worldwide, freshwater is becoming increasingly scarce, and the global sea-level rise threatens food production in fertile coastal lowlands. Future of Sustainable Agriculture in Saline Environments aims to showcase the global potential of saline agriculture. The book covers the essential topics, such as policy and awareness, soil management, future crops, and genetic developments, all supplemented by case studies that show how this knowledge has been applied. It offers an overview of current research themes and practical cases focused on enhancing food production on saline lands. FEATURES Describes the critical role of the revitalization of salt-degraded lands in achieving sustainability in agriculture on a global scale Discusses practical solutions toward using drylands and delta areas threatened by salinity for sustainable food production Presents strategies for adaptation to climate change and sea-level rise through food production under saline conditions Addresses the diverse aspects of crop salt tolerance and microbiological associations Highlights the complex problem of salinity and waterlogging and safer management of poor-quality water, supplemented by case studies A PDF version of this book is available for free in Open Access at www.taylorfrancis.com. It has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.
Download or read book Letters to a Young Farmer written by Martha Hodgkins and published by Chronicle Books. This book was released on 2017-03-07 with total page 179 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An agricultural revolution is sweeping the land. Appreciation for high-quality food, often locally grown, an awareness of the fragility of our farmlands, and a new generation of young people interested in farming, animals, and respect for the earth have come together to create a new agrarian community. To this group of farmers, chefs, activists, and visionaries, Letters to a Young Farmer is addressed. Three dozen esteemed leaders of the changes that made this revolution possible speak to the highs and lows of farming life in vivid and personal letters specially written for this collaboration. Barbara Kingsolver speaks to the tribe of farmers—some born to it, many self-selected—with love, admiration, and regret. Dan Barber traces the rediscovery of lost grains and foodways. Michael Pollan bridges the chasm between agriculture and nature. Bill McKibben connects the early human quest for beer to the modern challenge of farming in a rapidly changing climate. Letters to a Young Farmer is a vital road map of how we eat and farm, and why now, more than ever before, we need farmers.
