Download or read book Designing Regenerative Food Systems written by Marina O'Connell and published by . This book was released on 2022-02-21 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A toolkit of 6 regenerative food growing systems which have been tried and tested. These can help farmers and growers transform industrial food production systems into resilient, biodiverse, carbon negative, productive farms and bring about an agroecological revolution. Farms and garden design for growing healthy food from living soil in low input ......
Download or read book Regenerative Agriculture for Sustainable Food Systems written by Sandeep Kumar and published by Springer. This book was released on 2024-10-29 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book aims to present a comprehensive collection of information that combines improved soil and crop productivity, climate-based stress management, enhanced research infrastructure, financial assistance for regenerative technologies, and government subsidies and economic incentives. Considering the importance of soil biodiversity, health, and ecological balance, this book primarily focuses on effective plans and policies for soil management and restoration in agricultural soils. The book covers key areas such as advancing communication strategies to ensure subsidies and incentives for carbon-sequestering farm practices and effectively publicizing the benefits of soil carbon, health, and regenerative practices. It also includes the declaration of rules and regulations to guide policies, programs, and investments in green technologies for soil restoration and ecosystem services, and forming a robust virtual network among farmers, land managers, and their associations to prepare action plans and seek available funding for regenerative farm practices and technologies. Additionally, it promotes research and developmental activities on carbonaceous practices and land-use decisions across various agro-ecological regions and soil types. The central theme emphasizes that maintaining the ecological balance of soil, plants, the environment, and health is crucial for a healthier life and serves as a powerful tool in combating climate change, food and nutritional insecurities, and other environmental concerns. This book is suitable for teachers, researchers, scientists, government planners, policymakers, and students of agricultural sciences. It will also interest national and international climate change scientists, extension workers, and capacity builders.
Download or read book Routledge Handbook of Sustainable and Regenerative Food Systems written by Jessica Duncan and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-08-13 with total page 494 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This handbook includes contributions from established and emerging scholars from around the world and draws on multiple approaches and subjects to explore the socio-economic, cultural, ecological, institutional, legal, and policy aspects of regenerative food practices. The future of food is uncertain. We are facing an overwhelming number of interconnected and complex challenges related to the ways we grow, distribute, access, eat, and dispose of food. Yet, there are stories of hope and opportunities for radical change towards food systems that enhance the ability of living things to co-evolve. Given this, activities and imaginaries looking to improve, rather than just sustain, communities and ecosystems are needed, as are fresh perspectives and new terminology. The Routledge Handbook of Sustainable and Regenerative Food Systems addresses this need. The chapters cover diverse practices, geographies, scales, and entry-points. They focus not only on the core requirements to deliver sustainable agriculture and food supply, but go beyond this to think about how these can also actively participate with social-ecological systems. The book is presented in an accessible way, with reflection questions meant to spark discussion and debate on how to transition to safe, just, and healthy food systems. Taken together, the chapters in this handbook highlight the consequences of current food practices and showcase the multiple ways that people are doing food differently. The Routledge Handbook of Sustainable and Regenerative Food Systems is essential reading for students and scholars interested in food systems, governance and practices, agroecology, rural sociology, and socio-environmental studies.
Download or read book Improving Water Management Recent OECD Experience written by OECD and published by OECD Publishing. This book was released on 2003-02-21 with total page 119 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This publication brings together the recent work of the OECD on water management issues. It identifies the main policy challenges addressed by that work for sustainable water management.
Download or read book Regenerative Agriculture written by David Dent and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-06-21 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The food system is our last coal-fired power station, our last diesel engine. This book is a trans-disciplinary approach to what needs to be done to make our food system sustainable and to regenerate soil and water resources, habitat, economy and society. The book brings back classical principles of agronomy and integrates economic, agro-ecological and social perspectives, drawing on a wealth of expertise on the political economy of the food system, Conservation Agriculture, and long-term field experiments. Regenerative agriculture builds on known knowns – like crop rotation, water and nutrient requirements, soil and water conservation, farm-gate prices, international trade and supply chains. It grapples with known unknowns – like weed, pest and disease control without agrochemicals, cover crops for profit as well as protection, mitigating and adapting to the climate crisis, resilience and tipping points in ecosystems, farming systems and societies, and how we can pay for imperative changes. Lastly, it acknowledges unknown unknowns – the things we are oblivious to but which we really must know – like how to liberate the ghettos of the mind inhabited by farmers, agronomists, politicians and societies.
Download or read book Call of the Reed Warbler written by Charles Massy and published by Chelsea Green Publishing. This book was released on 2018-08-31 with total page 530 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Charles Massy has written a definitive masterpiece that takes its place along with the writings of Aldo Leopold, Wendell Berry, Masanobu Fukuoka, Humberto Maturana, and Michael Pollan. No work has more brilliantly defined regenerative agriculture and the breadth of its restorative impact upon human health, biodiversity, climate, and ecological intelligence." --Paul Hawken In Call of the Reed Warbler, Charles Massy explores regenerative agriculture and the vital connection between our soil and our health. It is the story of how a grassroots revolution—a true underground insurgency—can save the planet, help reduce and reverse climate change, and build healthy people and healthy communities, pivoting significantly on our relationship with growing and consuming food. Using his personal experience as a touchstone—from an unknowing, chemical-using farmer with dead soils to a radical ecologist farmer carefully regenerating a 2000-hectare property to a state of natural health—Massy tells the real story behind industrial agriculture and the global profit-obsessed corporations driving it. With evocative stories, he shows how other innovative and courageous farmers are finding a new way. At stake is not only a revolution in human health and in our communities, but the very survival of the planet. For farmers, backyard gardeners, food buyers, health workers, policy makers, and public leaders alike, Call of the Reed Warbler offers a tangible path forward and a powerful and moving paean of hope. It’s not too late to regenerate the earth. Call of the Reed Warbler shows the way forward for the future of our food supply, our planet, and our health.
Download or read book Sustainable Food Systems from Agriculture to Industry written by Charis M. Galanakis and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 2018-01-02 with total page 444 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sustainable Food Systems from Agriculture to Industry: Improving Production and Processing addresses the principle that food supply needs of the present must be met without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs. Responding to sustainability goals requires maximum utilization of all raw materials produced and integration of activities throughout all production-to-consumption stages. This book covers production stage activities to reduce postharvest losses and increase use of by-products streams (waste), food manufacturing and beyond, presenting insights to ensure energy, water and other resources are used efficiently and environmental impacts are minimized. The book presents the latest research and advancements in efficient, cost-effective, and environmentally friendly food production and ways they can be implemented within the food industry. Filling the knowledge gap between understanding and applying these advancements, this team of expert authors from around the globe offer both academic and industry perspectives and a real-world view of the challenges and potential solutions that exist for feeding the world in the future. The book will guide industry professionals and researchers in ways to improve the efficiency and sustainability of food systems. - Addresses why food waste recovery improves sustainability of food systems, how these issues can be adapted by the food industry, and the role of policy making in ensuring sustainable food production - Describes in detail the latest understanding of food processing, food production and waste reduction issues - Includes emerging topics, such as sustainable organic food production and computer aided process engineering - Analyzes the potential and sustainability of already commercialized processes and products
Download or read book Agroecology and Regenerative Agriculture written by Vandana Shiva and published by . This book was released on 2022 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book is an interdisciplinary synthesis of research and practice carried out over decades by leaders of the agroecology and regenerative organic agriculture movement. It provides detailed analysis of the multiple crises we face due to chemical and industrial agriculture, including land degradation, water depletion, biodiversity erosion, climate change, agrarian crises, and health crises. The book lays out biodiversity based organic farming and agroecology as the road map for the future of agriculture and sustainable food systems, both locally and globally. With detailed scientific evidence, Agroecology & Regenerative Agriculture shows how ecological agriculture based on working with nature rather than abasing ecological laws can regenerate the planet, the rural economy, and our health.
Download or read book Ecological and Practical Applications for Sustainable Agriculture written by Kuldeep Bauddh and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-06-27 with total page 474 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rampant industrialization, urbanization, and population growth have resulted in increased global environmental contamination. The productivity of agricultural soil is drastically deteriorated and requires a high dose of fertilizers to cultivate crops. To ensure food security, farmers are compelled to apply excess chemical fertilizers and insecticides that contaminate soil, air, and water. Heavy loads of chemical fertilizers not only degrade the quality of agricultural land but also pollute water and air. Use of chemical fertilizers also accelerate the release of greenhouse gases like nitrous oxide and methane along with nutrient runoff from the watershed in to lower elevation rivers and lakes, resulting in cultural eutrophication. Farming practices globally in developed, developing, and under-developing countries should utilize and promote sustainable methods through viable combined environmental, social, and economic means that improve rather than harm future generations. This can include use of non-synthetic fertilizers like compost, vermicompost, slow-release fertilizers, farmyard manures, crop rotations that include nitrogen-fixing legumes. Organic fertilizers like compost and vermicompost improve soil properties like texture, porosity, water-holding capacity, organic matter, as well as nutrient availability. The purpose of this book is to document the available alternatives of synthetic fertilizers, their mode of action, efficiency, preparation methodology, practical suggestions for sustainable practices, and needed research focus. The book will cover major disciplines like plant science, environmental science, agricultural science, agricultural biotechnology and microbiology, horticulture, soil science, atmospheric science, agro-forestry, agronomy, and ecology. This book is helpful for farmers, scientists, industrialists, research scholars, masters and graduate students, non-governmental organizations, financial advisers, and policy makers.
Download or read book Healing Grounds written by Liz Carlisle and published by Island Press. This book was released on 2022-03-10 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A powerful movement is happening in farming today—farmers are reconnecting with their roots to fight climate change. For one woman, that’s meant learning her tribe’s history to help bring back the buffalo. For another, it’s meant preserving forest purchased by her great-great-uncle, among the first wave of African Americans to buy land. Others are rejecting monoculture to grow corn, beans, and squash the way farmers in Mexico have done for centuries. Still others are rotating crops for the native cuisines of those who fled the “American wars” in Southeast Asia. In Healing Grounds, Liz Carlisle tells the stories of Indigenous, Black, Latinx, and Asian American farmers who are reviving their ancestors’ methods of growing food—techniques long suppressed by the industrial food system. These farmers are restoring native prairies, nurturing beneficial fungi, and enriching soil health. While feeding their communities and revitalizing cultural ties to land, they are steadily stitching ecosystems back together and repairing the natural carbon cycle. This, Carlisle shows, is the true regenerative agriculture – not merely a set of technical tricks for storing CO2 in the ground, but a holistic approach that values diversity in both plants and people. Cultivating this kind of regenerative farming will require reckoning with our nation’s agricultural history—a history marked by discrimination and displacement. And it will ultimately require dismantling power structures that have blocked many farmers of color from owning land or building wealth. The task is great, but so is its promise. By coming together to restore these farmlands, we can not only heal our planet, we can heal our communities and ourselves.
Download or read book Lentil Underground written by Liz Carlisle and published by Avery. This book was released on 2016-02-23 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "With a new foreword by Frederick L. Kirschenmann..."
Download or read book Resilient Agriculture written by Laura Lengnick and published by New Society Publishers. This book was released on 2015-05-11 with total page 371 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Climate change presents an unprecedented challenge to the productivity and profitability of agriculture in North America. More variable weather, drought, and flooding create the most obvious damage, but hot summer nights, warmer winters, longer growing seasons, and other environmental changes have more subtle but far-reaching effects on plant and livestock growth and development. Resilient Agriculture recognizes the critical role that sustainable agriculture will play in the coming decades and beyond. The latest science on climate risk, resilience, and climate change adaptation is blended with the personal experience of farmers and ranchers to explore: The "strange changes" in weather recorded over the last decade The associated shifts in crop and livestock behavior The actions producers have taken to maintain productivity in a changing climate The climate change challenge is real and it is here now. To enjoy the sustained production of food, fiber, and fuel well into the twenty-first century, we must begin now to make changes that will enhance the adaptive capacity and resilience of North American agriculture. The rich knowledge base presented in Resilient Agriculture is poised to serve as the cornerstone of an evolving, climate-ready food system. Laura Lengnick is a researcher, policymaker, activist, educator, and farmer whose work explores the community-enhancing potential of agriculture and food systems. She directs the academic program in sustainable agriculture at Warren Wilson College and was a lead author of the report Climate Change and Agriculture in the United States: Effects and Adaptation.
Download or read book The Economics of Sustainable Food written by Nicoletta Batini and published by Island Press. This book was released on 2021-06-08 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Economics of Sustainable Food details the true cost of food for people and the planet. It illustrates how to transform our broken system, alleviating its severe financial and human burden. The key is smart macroeconomic policy that moves us toward methods that protect the environment like regenerative land and sea farming, low-impact urban farming, and alternative protein farming, and toward healthy diets. The book's multidisciplinary team of authors lay out detailed fiscal and trade policies, as well as structural reforms, to achieve those goals. Chapters discuss strategies to make food production sustainable, nutritious, and fair, ranging from taxes and spending to education, labor market, health care, and pension reforms, alongside regulation in cases where market incentives are unlikely to work or to work fast enough. The authors carefully consider the different needs of more and less advanced economies, balancing economic development and sustainability goals. Case studies showcase successful strategies from around the world, such as taxing foods with a high carbon footprint, financing ecosystems mapping and conservation to meet scientific targets for healthy biomes permanency, subsidizing sustainable land and sea farming, reforming health systems to move away from sick care to preventive, nutrition-based care, and providing schools with matching funds to purchase local organic produce.--Amazon.
Download or read book The Carbon Farming Solution written by Eric Toensmeier and published by Chelsea Green Publishing. This book was released on 2016-02-22 with total page 497 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With carbon farming, agriculture ceases to be part of the climate problem and becomes a critical part of the solution "This book is the toolkit for making the soil itself a sponge for carbon. It’s a powerful vision."—Bill McKibben "The Carbon Farming Solution is a book we will look back upon decades from now and wonder why something so critically relevant could have been so overlooked until that time. . . . [It] describes the foundation of the future of civilization."—Paul Hawken In this groundbreaking book, Eric Toensmeier argues that agriculture—specifically, the subset of practices known as "carbon farming"—can, and should be, a linchpin of a global climate solutions platform. Carbon farming is a suite of agricultural practices and crops that sequester carbon in the soil and in above-ground biomass. Combined with a massive reduction in fossil fuel emissions—and in concert with adaptation strategies to our changing environment— carbon farming has the potential to bring us back from the brink of disaster and return our atmosphere to the "magic number" of 350 parts per million of carbon dioxide. Toensmeier’s book is the first to bring together these powerful strategies in one place. Includes in-depth analysis of the available research. Carbon farming can take many forms. The simplest practices involve modifications to annual crop production. Although many of these modifications have relatively low sequestration potential, they are widely applicable and easily adopted, and thus have excellent potential to mitigate climate change if practiced on a global scale. Likewise, grazing systems such as silvopasture are easily replicable, don’t require significant changes to human diet, and—given the amount of agricultural land worldwide that is devoted to pasture—can be important strategies in the carbon farming arsenal. But by far, agroforestry practices and perennial crops present the best opportunities for sequestration. While many of these systems are challenging to establish and manage, and would require us to change our diets to new and largely unfamiliar perennial crops, they also offer huge potential that has been almost entirely ignored by climate crusaders. Many of these carbon farming practices are already implemented globally on a scale of millions of hectares. These are not minor or marginal efforts, but win-win solutions that provide food, fodder, and feedstocks while fostering community self-reliance, creating jobs, protecting biodiversity, and repairing degraded land—all while sequestering carbon, reducing emissions, and ultimately contributing to a climate that will remain amenable to human civilization. Just as importantly to a livable future, these crops and practices can contribute to broader social goals such as women’s empowerment, food sovereignty, and climate justice. The Carbon Farming Solution is—at its root—a toolkit and the most complete collection of climate-friendly crops and practices currently available. With this toolkit, farmers, communities, and governments large and small, can successfully launch carbon farming projects with the most appropriate crops and practices to their climate, locale, and socioeconomic needs. Toensmeier’s ultimate goal is to place carbon farming firmly in the center of the climate solutions platform, alongside clean solar and wind energy. With The Carbon Farming Solution, Toensmeier wants to change the discussion, impact policy decisions, and steer mitigation funds to the research, projects, and people around the world who envision a future where agriculture becomes the protagonist in this fraught, urgent, and unprecedented drama of our time. Citizens, farmers, and funders will be inspired to use the tools presented in this important book to transform degraded lands around the world into productive carbon-storing landscapes.
Download or read book One Size Fits None written by Stephanie Anderson and published by University of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2019-01-01 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 2019 Midwest Book Award for Nature 2020 High Plains Book Award Finalist 2020 Silver Nautilus Book Award Winner in Green Living and Sustainability “Sustainable” has long been the rallying cry of agricultural progressives; given that much of our nation’s farm and ranch land is already degraded, however, sustainable agriculture often means maintaining a less-than-ideal status quo. Industrial agriculture has also co-opted the term for marketing purposes without implementing better practices. Stephanie Anderson argues that in order to provide nutrient-rich food and fight climate change, we need to move beyond sustainable to regenerative agriculture, a practice that is highly tailored to local environments and renews resources. In One Size Fits None Anderson follows diverse farmers across the United States: a South Dakota bison rancher who provides an alternative to the industrial feedlot; an organic vegetable farmer in Florida who harvests microgreens; a New Mexico super-small farmer who revitalizes communities; and a North Dakota midsize farmer who combines livestock and grain farming to convert expensive farmland back to native prairie. The use of these nontraditional agricultural techniques show how varied operations can give back to the earth rather than degrade it. This book will resonate with anyone concerned about the future of food in America, providing guidance for creating a better, regenerative agricultural future. Download a discussion guide (PDF).
Download or read book Dirt to Soil written by Gabe Brown and published by Chelsea Green Publishing. This book was released on 2018-10-11 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A regenerative no-till pioneer."—NBC News "We need to reintegrate livestock and crops on our farms and ranches, and Gabe Brown shows us how to do it well."—Temple Grandin, author of Animals in Translation See Gabe Brown—author and farmer—in the Netflix documentary Kiss the Ground Gabe Brown didn’t set out to change the world when he first started working alongside his father-in-law on the family farm in North Dakota. But as a series of weather-related crop disasters put Brown and his wife, Shelly, in desperate financial straits, they started making bold changes to their farm. Brown—in an effort to simply survive—began experimenting with new practices he’d learned about from reading and talking with innovative researchers and ranchers. As he and his family struggled to keep the farm viable, they found themselves on an amazing journey into a new type of farming: regenerative agriculture. Brown dropped the use of most of the herbicides, insecticides, and synthetic fertilizers that are a standard part of conventional agriculture. He switched to no-till planting, started planting diverse cover crops mixes, and changed his grazing practices. In so doing Brown transformed a degraded farm ecosystem into one full of life—starting with the soil and working his way up, one plant and one animal at a time. In Dirt to Soil Gabe Brown tells the story of that amazing journey and offers a wealth of innovative solutions to restoring the soil by laying out and explaining his "five principles of soil health," which are: Limited Disturbance Armor Diversity Living Roots Integrated Animals The Brown’s Ranch model, developed over twenty years of experimentation and refinement, focuses on regenerating resources by continuously enhancing the living biology in the soil. Using regenerative agricultural principles, Brown’s Ranch has grown several inches of new topsoil in only twenty years! The 5,000-acre ranch profitably produces a wide variety of cash crops and cover crops as well as grass-finished beef and lamb, pastured laying hens, broilers, and pastured pork, all marketed directly to consumers. The key is how we think, Brown says. In the industrial agricultural model, all thoughts are focused on killing things. But that mindset was also killing diversity, soil, and profit, Brown realized. Now he channels his creative thinking toward how he can get more life on the land—more plants, animals, and beneficial insects. “The greatest roadblock to solving a problem,” Brown says, “is the human mind.”
Download or read book True Cost Accounting for Food written by Barbara Gemmill-Herren and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-06-22 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explains how True Cost Accounting is an effective tool we can use to address the pervasive imbalance in our food system. Calls are coming from all quarters that the food system is broken and needs a radical transformation. A system that feeds many yet continues to create both extreme hunger and diet-related diseases, and one which has significant environmental impacts, is not serving the world adequately. This volume argues that True Cost Accounting in our food system can create a framework for a systemic shift. What sounds on the surface like a practice relegated to accountants is ultimately a call for a new lens on the valuation of food and a new relationship with the food we eat, starting with the reform of a system out of balance. From the true cost of corn, rice and water, to incentives for soil health, the chapters economically compare conventional and regenerative, more equitable farming practices in and food system structures, including taking an unflinching look at the true cost of cheap labour. Overall, this volume points towards the potential for our food system to be more human-centred than profit-centred and one that has a more respectful relationship to the planet. It sets forth a path forward based on True Cost Accounting for food. This path seeks to fix our current food metrics, in policy and in practice, by applying a holistic lens that evaluates the actual costs and benefits of different food systems, and the impacts and dependencies between natural systems, human systems, agriculture and food systems. This volume is essential reading for professionals and policymakers involved in developing and reforming the food system, as well as students and scholars working on food policy, food systems and sustainability.