Author: Diane Grant Publisher: Viking Books ISBN: 9780670856725 Category : Farms, Small Languages : en Pages : 230
Book Description
A revolution has been taking place in the New Zealand countryside, the number of smallholdings tripling in the past two decades. The Smallfarming Revolution provides amnd absorbing and realistic view of the smallfarming life. It covers the great range of farming activities carried out on smallholdings. And it describes how smallfarming is in harmony with emerging trends about working patterns and sustainable living. The book also contains detailed case histories of 21 New Zealand smallfarming partnerships, of varying ages and backgrounds, leading different but successful And fulfilling lives beyond city and town boundaries.
Author: John Ikerd Publisher: ISBN: Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 280
Book Description
"Since the middle of the last century, American farm policy has taken the nation into the dead end of industrial farm production and food distribution. Farming, at its core a biological process, has been transformed into an industrial process, thus demolishing the economic and cultural values upon which the nation was founded. Along the way, small farms have been ridiculed and dismissed as inconsequential -- but now the seeds of a rural renaissance are being planted, not by these industrial behemoths, but by family-scale farms. In this collection of essays by one of America's most eloquent and influential proponents of sustainable agriculture, the multifaceted case for small farms is built using logic and facts."--Publisher's website.
Author: Chris Smaje Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing ISBN: 1603589031 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 322
Book Description
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.
Author: Peter D. McClelland Publisher: ISBN: Category : Agricultural innovations Languages : en Pages : 376
Book Description
Contrary to those who regard the economic transformation of the West as a gradual process spanning centuries, Peter D. McClelland claims the initial transformation of American agriculture was an unmistakable revolution. He asks when a single crucial question was first directed persistently, pervasively, and systematically to farming practices: Is there a better way? McClelland surveys practices from crop rotation to livestock breeding, with a particular focus on the change in implements used to produce small grains. With wit and verve and an abundance of detail, he demonstrates that the first great surge in inventive activity in agronomy in the United States took place following the War of 1812, much of it in a fifteen-year period ending in 1830. Once questioning the status quo became the norm for producers on and off the farm, according to McClelland, the march to modernization was virtually assured. With the aid of more than 270 illustrations, many of them taken from contemporary sources, McClelland describes this stunning transformation in a manner rarely found in the agricultural literature. How primitive farming implements worked, what their defects were, and how they were initially redesigned are explained in a manner intelligible to the novice and yet offering analysis and information of special interest to the expert.
Author: Masanobu Fukuoka Publisher: New York Review of Books ISBN: 1590173139 Category : Nature Languages : en Pages : 226
Book Description
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.
Author: Paul Brassley Publisher: ISBN: Category : Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
At the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 British agriculture was largely powered by the muscles of men, women, and horses, and used mostly nineteenth-century technology to produce less than half of the country's temperate food. By 1985, less land and far fewer people were involved in farming, the power sources and technologies had been completely transformed, and the output of the country's agriculture had more than doubled. This is the story of the national farm, reflecting the efforts and experiences of 200,000 or so farmers and their families, together with the people they employed. But it is not the story of any individual one of them. We know too little about change at the individual farm level, although what happened varied considerably between farms and between different technologies.0 Based on an improbably-surviving archive of Farm Management Survey accounts, supported by oral histories from some of the farmers involved, this book explores the links between the production of new technologies, their transmission through knowledge networks, and their reception on individual farms. It contests the idea that rapid adoption of technology was inevitable, and reveals the unevenness, variability and complexity that lay beneath the smooth surface of the official statistics.0WINNER of the British Agricultural History Society's 2022 Thirsk Prize.
Author: Zoe Wilcox Publisher: Home Farm Books ISBN: 9780615631738 Category : Gardening Languages : en Pages : 298
Book Description
Developed out of Zoe Wilcox and Melanie Rubin's workshops at Mother Nature Gardens and Sacred Heart Backyard Farm, "The Home Farming Revolution for Drylands" is a step-by step guide to help you convert any plot of land into a micro-farm. Although the book focuses on techniques for the desert Southwest of the United States, the main concepts and principles are applicable anywhere. The benefits of creating home farms in our towns and cities are as plentiful as the bounty they produce. We need healthy food in order to be healthy. The United States faces a growing number of health concerns that may be catalyzed or exaggerated by poor nutrition in this, the "wealthiest nation in the world." Wilcox and Rubin believe a person shouldn't have to be wealthy to eat healthy! Home farming provides healthy, organic food at peak freshness to all people despite economic status or location.
Author: Diane Grant
Author: United States Information Service (New Delhi, India)
Author: United States. Information Service, Delhi
Author: G. E. Mingay
Author: John Ikerd
Author: Chris Smaje
Author: Peter D. McClelland
Author: Masanobu Fukuoka
Author: Paul Brassley
Author: Zoe Wilcox