The Hidden Half of Nature reveals why good health—for people and for plants—depends on Earth’s smallest creatures. Restoring life to their barren yard and recovering from a health crisis, David R. Montgomery and Anne Biklé discover astounding parallels between the botanical world and our own bodies. From garden to gut, they show why cultivating beneficial microbiomes holds the key to transforming agriculture and medicine.

    From soil erosion and population displacement to climate change and failed energy policies, American governing classes are paid by corporations to pretend that debate is the only democratic necessity and that solutions are capable of withstanding endless delay. Late Capitalism goes about its business of finishing off the planet. And we citizens are left with a shell of what was once proudly described as The American Dream.In this new collection of eleven essays, Berry confronts head-on the necessity of clear thinking and direct action. Never one to ignore the present challenge, he understands that only clearly stated questions support the understanding their answers require. For more than fifty years we’ve had no better spokesman and no more eloquent advocate for the planet, for our families, and for the future of our children and ourselves.

    government predicts that forty of our fifty states—and 60 percent of the earth's land surface—will soon face alarming gaps between available water and the growing demand for it. Without action, food prices will rise, economic growth will slow, and political instability is likely to follow.Let There Be Water illustrates how Israel can serve as a model for the United States and countries everywhere by showing how to blunt the worst of the coming water calamities. Even with 60 percent of its country made of desert, Israel has not only solved its water problem; it also had an abundance of water. Israel even supplies water to its neighbors—the Palestinians and the Kingdom of Jordan—every day.Based on meticulous research and hundreds of interviews, Let There Be Water reveals the methods and techniques of the often offbeat inventors who enabled Israel to lead the world in cutting-edge water technology.Let There Be Water also tells unknown stories of how cooperation on water systems can forge diplomatic ties and promote unity. Remarkably, not long ago, now-hostile Iran relied on Israel to manage its water systems, and access to Israel's water know-how helped to warm China's frosty relations with Israel.Beautifully written, Let There Be Water is an inspiring account of the vision and sacrifice by a nation and people that have long made water security a top priority. Despite scant natural water resources, a rapidly growing population and economy, and often hostile neighbors, Israel has consistently jumped ahead of the water innovation-curve to assure a dynamic, vital future for itself. Every town, every country, and every reader can benefit from learning what Israel did to overcome daunting challenges and transform itself from a parched land into a water superpower.

    In their current form, these unproductive expanses of grass represent a significant financial and environmental cost. However, viewed through a different lens, they can also be seen as a tremendous source of opportunity. Access to land is a major barrier for many people who want to enter the agricultural sector, and urban and suburban yards have huge potential for would-be farmers wanting to become part of this growing movement.The Urban Farmer is a comprehensive, hands-on, practical manual to help you learn the techniques and business strategies you need to make a good living growing high-yield, high-value crops right in your own backyard (or someone else's). Major benefits include:Low capital investment and overhead costs Reduced need for expensive infrastructure Easy access to marketsGrowing food in the city means that fresh crops may travel only a few blocks from field to table, making this innovative approach the next logical step in the local food movement. Based on a scalable, easily reproduced business model, The Urban Farmer is your complete guide to minimizing risk and maximizing profit by using intensive production in small leased or borrowed spaces.Curtis Stone is the owner/operator of Green City Acres, a commercial urban farm growing vegetables for farmers markets, restaurants, and retail outlets. During his slower months, Curtis works as a public speaker, teacher, and consultant, sharing his story to inspire a new generation of farmers.

    In many cases, though, the same sound business practices apply whether you are producing cars or carrots. Author Ben Hartman and other young farmers are increasingly finding that incorporating the best new ideas from business into their farming can drastically cut their wastes and increase their profits, making their farms more environmentally and economically sustainable. By explaining the lean system for identifying and eliminating waste and introducing efficiency in every aspect of the farm operation, The Lean Farm makes the case that small-scale farming can be an attractive career option for young people who are interested in growing food for their community. Working smarter, not harder, also prevents the kind of burnout that start-up farmers often encounter in the face of long, hard, backbreaking labor. Lean principles grew out of the Japanese automotive industry, but they are now being followed on progressive farms around the world. Using examples from his own family’s one-acre community-supported farm in Indiana, Hartman clearly instructs other small farmers in how to incorporate lean practices in each step of their production chain, from starting a farm and harvesting crops to training employees and selling goods. While the intended audience for this book is small-scale farmers who are part of the growing local food movement, Hartman’s prescriptions for high-value, low-cost production apply to farms and businesses of almost any size or scale that hope to harness the power of lean in their production processes.

    In addition to these cultivated food crops, they also forage for wild edibles, process their own meat, make their own butter, and ferment, dry, and can their own vegetables. Their focus is to produce nutrient-dense foods from vibrant, mineralized soils for themselves and their immediate community.(from Amazon)

    You CAN grow buckets upon buckets of food in Florida - and this book gives you the secrets to pulling it off year after year. Lots more food - for a lot less work! Whether you want to save money, feed your family, start a survival garden, garden year-round, go paleo or build a huge prepper garden, this is the book for you. Learn the cheap simple techniques that will kickstart your Florida gardening. Discover the crops that will always come through for you. Quit hating the sand and the bugs and start reaping abundant harvests like you've never had before! This book provides the answers for both beginners and experts, delivered with humor. If you want yet another boring gardening book - this isn't it. Through combining Back to Eden gardening, Square Foot Gardening, Biointensive gardening, container gardening and some of the most productive crops on the planet, you WILL succeed! This is easy Florida gardening like you've never seen before. Pick up a copy of Totally Crazy Easy Florida Gardening and turn your backyard patch of weeds and sand into a money-saving vegetable factory that will keep your family fed no matter what the economy does. Start gardening RIGHT NOW before it's too late! Expert Florida gardener David The Good shares how in Totally Crazy Easy Florida Gardening.

    In an easy-to-understand, practical, and comprehensive manner, readers will learn how to focus on quality over quantity, and keep costs down by innovating with existing equipment, rather than expensive technology. Market farmers who have never before considered growing medicinal herbs will learn why it’s more important to produce these herbs domestically.The Organic Medicinal Herb Farmer makes a convincing case that producing organic medicinal herbs can be a viable, profitable, farming enterprise. The Carpenters also make the case for incorporating medicinal herbs into existing operations, as it can help increase revenue in the form of value-added products, not to mention improve the ecological health of farmland by encouraging biodiversity as a path toward greater soil health.

    Many people visualize sun-roughened skin, faded overalls, and calloused hands—hands that are usually white. While there's no doubt the growing trend of organic farming and homesteading is changing how the farmer is portrayed in mainstream media, farmers of color are still largely left out of the picture.The Color of Food seeks to rectify this. By recognizing the critical issues that lie at the intersection of race and food, this stunning collection of portraits and stories challenges the status quo of agrarian identity. Author, photographer, and biracial farmer Natasha Bowens's quest to explore her own roots in the soil leads her to unearth a larger story, weaving together the seemingly forgotten history of agriculture for people of color, the issues they face today, and the culture and resilience they bring to food and farming.The Color of Food teaches us that the food and farm movement is about more than buying local and protecting our soil. It is about preserving culture and community, digging deeply into the places we've overlooked, and honoring those who have come before us. Blending storytelling, photography, oral history, and unique insight, these pages remind us that true food sovereignty means a place at the table for everyone.Natasha Bowens is an author, farmer, and creator of the multimedia project The Color of Food. Her advocacy focuses on food sovereignty and social issues.

    The marketplace distorts our values, and our modern dependence on petroleum in particular presents a serious barrier to creating a truly sustainable agriculture.For him the solution is, first and foremost, greater self-reliance, especially in the areas of food and energy. By avoiding any off-farm inputs (fertilizers, minerals, and animal manures), Bonsall has learned how to practice a purely veganic, or plant-based, agriculture—not from a strictly moralistic or philosophical perspective, but because it makes good business sense: spend less instead of making more.What this means in practical terms is that Bonsall draws upon the fertility of on-farm plant materials: compost, green manures, perennial grasses, and forest products like leaves and ramial wood chips. And he grows and harvests a diversity of crops from both cultivated and perennial plants: vegetables, grains, pulses, oilseeds, fruits and nuts—even uncommon but useful permaculture plants like groundnut (Apios).In a friendly, almost conversational way, Bonsall imparts a wealth of knowledge drawn from his more than forty years of farming experience."My goal," he writes, "is not to feed the world, but to feed myself and let others feed themselves. If we all did that, it might be a good beginning."

    Instead of turning away from the animal cruelty she came to witness, Sonia made the most courageous decision of her life: a commitment to change things.Driven by impulsive will and searing passion, Sonia left behind everything she knew and loved to search the planet for solutions to benefit animals, health, and the environment. Over the course of living with farmers, hitchhiking with strangers, and risking her life, she developed surprising insights and solutions—both about the food industry and herself.Lively and heartfelt, Sonia takes readers on an unforgettable adventure from top-secret egg warehouses in Canada to dairy feedlots in the United States, from farm offices in Mexico to lush pastures in Belize, from flocks of village chickens in Indonesia to factory farms in Malaysia.

     Do you want to learn to turn food scraps into valuable compost? Do you believe in taking responsibility for the food waste we create? Worm Composting is the Solution! People all over the world are using worm farming to turn their food scraps into nutrient-rich vermicompost by starting their own worm compost bin. Check out a few of the reviews for “How to Start a Worm Bin” to see what readers say about the book. ”How to Start a Worm Bin” will teach you how to: Start a Worm Compost Bin Care for Composting Worms Harvest the Worm Compost (vermicompost) Use Worm Compost in your garden soils Scroll back up and click ‘Buy Now’ to Start your Worm Bin today! “How to Start a Worm Bin” also includes: A FREE gift from the author: “Inside my Worm Composting Toolbox” Vermicomposting FAQ Worm Compost Bin Troubleshooting

    Drawing on his personal experiences raising pigs as well as his sharp investigative instincts, Estabrook covers the range of the human-porcine experience. He embarks on nocturnal feral pig hunts in Texas. He visits farmers who raise animals in vast confinement barns for Smithfield and Tyson, two of the country’s biggest pork producers. And he describes the threat of infectious disease and the possible contamination of our food supply. Through these stories shines Estabrook’s abiding love for these remarkable creatures. Pigs are social, self-aware, and playful, not to mention smart enough to master the typical house dog commands of “sit, stay, come” twice as fast as your average pooch. With the cognitive abilities of at least three-year-olds, they can even learn to operate a modified computer. Unfortunately for the pigs, they’re also delicious to eat.Estabrook shows how these creatures are all too often subjected to lives of suffering in confinement and squalor, sustained on a drug-laced diet just long enough to reach slaughter weight, then killed on mechanized disassembly lines. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Pig Tales presents a lively portrait of those farmers who are taking an alternative approach, like one Danish producer that has a far more eco-friendly and humane system of pork production, and new, small family farms with free-range heritage pigs raised on antibiotic-free diets. It is possible to raise pigs responsibly and respectfully in a way that is good for producers, consumers, and some of the top chefs in America.Provocative, witty, and deeply informed, Pig Tales is bound to spark conversation at dinner tables across America.

    Now imagine that Eden is your very own Florida yard! No matter where you live in the state, you can transform a patch of grass or woods into a magical edible Eden in just a few years. Discover the permaculture breakthrough that may one day feed the world. Build soil, get plants for free and grow more food with less work! Learn how in this booklet with expert Florida gardener David The Good.

    "What's the Buzz?" celebrates the magic of bees--from swarming to dancing to making honey--and encourages readers to do their part to keep the hives alive. All over the world, bee colonies are dwindling, but everyone can do something to help save the bees, from buying local honey to growing a bee-friendly garden.

    The PF systems described in this book are based on a plant production system with artificial (electric) lights and include case studies providing lessons learned and best practices from both industrial and crop specific programs.With insights into the economics as well as the science of PF programs, this book is ideal for those in academic as well as industrial settings.

    The many tributes honoring his contributions to scientific advancement and black history include a national monument bearing his name, a U.S.-minted coin featuring his likeness, and induction into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. Born into slavery, Carver earned a master’s degree at Iowa State Agricultural College and went on to become that university’s first black faculty member. A keen painter who chose agricultural studies over art, his research into peanuts and sweet potatoes—crops that would replenish the cotton-leached soil of the South—helped spare multitudes of sharecroppers from poverty. Despite Carver’s lifelong difficulties with systemic racial prejudice, when he died in 1943, millions of Americans mourned the passing of one of the nation’s most honored and well-known scientists. Scores of children’s books celebrate the contributions of this prolific botanist, but no biographer has fully examined both his personal life and career until now.Christina Vella offers a thorough biography of George Washington Carver, including in-depth details of his relationships with, his friends, colleagues, supporters, and those he loved.. Despite the exceptional trajectory of his career, Carver was not immune to the racism of the Jim Crow era or the privations and hardships of the Great Depression and two world wars. Yet throughout this tumultuous period, his scientific achievements aligned him with equally extraordinary friends, including Teddy Roosevelt, Mohandas Gandhi, Henry A. Wallace, and Henry Ford.In pursuit of the man behind the historical figure, Vella discovers an unassuming intellectual with a quirky sense of humor, striking eccentricities, and an unwavering religious faith. She explores Carver’s anguished dealings with Booker T. Washington across their nineteen years working together at the Tuskegee Institute—a turbulent partnership often fraught with jealousy. Uneasy in personal relationships, Carver lost one woman he loved to suicide and, years later, directed his devotion toward a white man.A prodigious and generous scholar whose life was shaped by struggle and heartbreak as well as success and fame, George Washington Carver remains a key figure in the history of southern agriculture, botanical advancement, and the struggle for civil rights. Vella’s extensively researched biography offers a complex and compelling portrait of one of the most brilliant men of the last century.

    The Dairy Goat Handbook is a guidebook for those who would like to raise dairy goatsâ??or dream of raising dairy goatsâ??and want to know how to begin and maintain a successful herd.There are other books on the business of keeping dairy goats, but none quite like this. Written by a dairy goat farmer, this guide combines a deep knowledge of the animals themselves with fifteen years of experience running a successful business. Fully illustrated with photographs of life on a working dairy farmâ??the goats, the farm, the dairy equipment, and the cheese and milkâ??this book explains as well as celebrates the life of a dairy goat farmer.The author, Ann Starbard, owns Crystal Brook Farm in Sterling, Massachusetts, where she and her husband raise dairy goats and make fresh goat cheese that they sell onsite, at farmers' markets, and at restaurants. Ann explains the details of raising goats and running a dairy in simple, clear, easy-to-understand language; this is a book for everyone interested in the business of raising dairy goats.

    For more than two decades, honeybee colonies have steadily declined around the world. Bees and other pollinators are one of the most critical components of our food supply - if they disappear, so do we. You can make a difference by becoming a natural, treatment-free beekeeper right in your backyard. Save the Bees offers different, easy and healthier ways to keep your own hive!Rob and Chelsea share all the wisdom from this ancient practice in a way that is fresh, modern and easy for anyone to do. Along the way, they bust up some common bee myths:- You don't need to spend thousands of dollars on equipment. They tell you the most essential tools you need to get started and what you can make yourself.- You don't need any chemicals, pesticides or supplements to keep your bees healthy. Rob and Chelsea tell you how to recognize and maintain a healthy hive and how to save a failing one. The treatment-free way is not just a way to keep bees; it's the best way - good for you, the bees and the world.Save the Bees breaks down the complexity of beekeeping so you can learn step-by-step how to acquire a colony, care for it and reap the reward - that incredibly delicious, all-natural, chemical-free, unprocessed, sweet, sweet honey. Not to mention you'll be welcomed into the quirky, amazing and fun family of beekeepers around the world. So get on board and let's save some bees.

    But the possibilities of the indoor garden to transform our homes and our lives remain largely unrealized.In this groundbreaking book, Jerome Osentowski, one of North America’s most accomplished permaculture designers, presents a wholly new approach to a very old horticultural subject. In The Forest Garden Greenhouse, he shows how bringing the forest garden indoors is not only possible, but doable on unlikely terrain and in cold climates, using near-net-zero technology. Different from other books on greenhouse design and management, this book advocates for an indoor agriculture using permaculture design concepts―integration, multi-functions, perennials, and polycultures―that take season extension into new and important territory.Osentowski, director and founder of Central Rocky Mountain Permaculture Institute (CRMPI), farms at 7,200 feet on a steep, rocky hillside in Colorado, incorporating deep, holistic permaculture design with practical common sense. It is at this site, high on a mountaintop, where Osentowski (along with architect and design partner Michael Thompson) has been designing and building revolutionary greenhouses that utilize passive and active solar technology via what they call the “climate battery”―a subterranean air-circulation system that takes the hot, moist, ambient air from the greenhouse during the day, stores it in the soil, and discharges it at night―that can offer tropical and Mediterranean climates at similarly high altitudes and in cold climates (and everywhere else). Osentowski’s greenhouse designs, which can range from the backyard homesteader to commercial greenhouses, are completely ecological and use a simple design that traps hot and cold air and regulates it for best possible use. The book is part case study of the amazing greenhouses at CRMPI and part how-to primer for anyone interested in a more integrated model for growing food and medicine in a greenhouse. With detailed design drawings, photos, and profiles of successful greenhouse projects on all scales, this inspirational manual will considerably change the conversation about greenhouse design.

    Now you can sample Birchwood’s recipes—adapted for home cooks—and fill your own table with some of the irresistible fare that has made the cafe one of the region’s best-loved restaurants.   In these pages, find Birchwood’s light-hearted, innovative menu: hearty hand pies and multigrain salads, decadent pastries, and award-winning desserts. Organized by eight seasons, these dishes are inspired by the way weather affects our appetites and determines what comes from our land. With Spring, we celebrate beginnings, tossing up fragrant herbs, tender greens, and tart rhubarb. Come Summer, we fire up the grill and get outside; when Scorch hits and those dog days dampen appetites, we whip up cool soups and refreshing salads. Then Autumn, with its collision of apples, pears, pumpkins, and kale; and as Dusk falls, we get cozy with bowls of savory soup. Frost tempts us back to the stove with nourishing roots. Ready for Winter, we gather close with friends near the hearth, ladling up warming stews. Come Thaw, look to the first food of the season as the maple syrup runs and we anticipate a new year. The pantry chapter features Chef Marshall Paulsen’s condiments—chutney, jam, preserves, and vinaigrettes—which can transform the simplest dish into a spectacular plate.   Owner Tracy Singleton and Chef Marshall share Birchwood stories and memories, plus practical tips and insights. Just as Birchwood Cafe is more than a restaurant, this is more than a cookbook. The Birchwood Cafe Cookbook shows you what it takes to make a sustainable kitchen and a joyful table, to prepare “good real food” that really does more than a little good.

    Marine ecosystems are in a crisis that is global in scope, rapid in pace, and colossal in scale. In The Tragedy of the Commodity, sociologists Stefano B. Longo, Rebecca Clausen, and Brett Clark explore the role human influence plays in this crisis, highlighting the social and economic forces that are at the heart of this looming ecological problem. In a critique of the classic theory “the tragedy of the commons” by ecologist Garrett Hardin, the authors move beyond simplistic explanations—such as unrestrained self-interest or population growth—to argue that it is the commodification of aquatic resources that leads to the depletion of fisheries and the development of environmentally suspect means of aquaculture. To illustrate this argument, the book features two fascinating case studies—the thousand-year history of the bluefin tuna fishery in the Mediterranean and the massive Pacific salmon fishery. Longo, Clausen, and Clark describe how new fishing technologies, transformations in ships and storage capacities, and the expansion of seafood markets combined to alter radically and permanently these crucial ecosystems. In doing so, the authors underscore how the particular organization of social production contributes to ecological degradation and an increase in the pressures placed upon the ocean. The authors highlight the historical, political, economic, and cultural forces that shape how we interact with the larger biophysical world. A path-breaking analysis of overfishing, The Tragedy of the Commodity yields insight into issues such as deforestation, biodiversity loss, pollution, and climate change.

    As communities from Victoria to St. John’s amend urban bylaws to allow backyard flocks, more and more Canadians are enjoying the pleasures and rewards of keeping hens in the garden. In addition to tending her family’s flock as a child, Signe Langford has kept chickens in her urban Toronto yard for almost a decade. Her book is stuffed full of practical advice on keeping the garden both gorgeous and productive and hens happy and healthy. In addition to answering questions about coop construction, year-round egg production and whether or not a rooster is really needed, she covers the best breeds for backyards—from the Canadian winter-tough Chantecler to peewee bantams to blue-egg producing Ameraucana. A self-admitted “biomass addict,” Langford explains how hens are the happiest garden helpers anyone could ever have. Give them kitchen scraps and let them visit the compost pile: they’ll enrich and aerate the soil, all while eating as many bugs as they can get their beaks on. Langford also shares what plants should be scratched and what to sow to support the flock—from edible flowers and foliage to a hens’ herbal healing bed. In the kitchen, Langford tells why coddling can be a good thing when it comes to eggs; how to salt-cure yolks and how to dash off a classic French omelette baveuse. From Egg Yolk Won Ton Soup to Vanilla Coeur a la Crème with Blueberry Compote, Langford includes dozens of simple and elegant recipes from her own kitchen, as well as from celebrated contributors such as Vikram Vij, Laura Calder, Ted Reader, Roger Mooking and John Higgins. Illustrated with beautiful photographs, illustrations and garden plans, Happy Hens Fresh Eggs is sure to become a favourite of avid and aspiring backyard farmers alike.

    Or did it? In The Knowledge of Nature and the Nature of Knowledge in Early Modern Japan, Federico Marcon recounts how Japanese scholars developed a sophisticated discipline of natural history analogous to Europe’s but created independently, without direct influence, and argues convincingly that Japanese natural history succumbed to Western science not because of suppression and substitution, as scholars traditionally have contended, but by adaptation and transformation.             The first book-length English-language study devoted to the important field of honzogaku, The Knowledge of Nature and the Nature of Knowledge in Early Modern Japan will be an essential text for historians of Japanese and East Asian science, and a fascinating read for anyone interested in the development of science in the early modern era.

    Help them grow to be fruitful, self-sufficient, happy, and healthy!

    Much of the impetus to move back to the land, raise our own food, and connect with our agricultural past is being driven by women. They raise sheep for wool, harvest honey from their beehives, grow food for their families and sell their goods at farmers' markets. What does a woman who wants to work the land need to do to follow her dream?First, she needs this book. It may seem strange to suggest that women farmers need a different guide than male farmers, but women often have different strengths and goals, and different ways of achieving those goals. Audrey Levatino shares her experiences of running a farm and offers invaluable advice on how to get started, whether you have hundreds of acres or a simple lot for an urban community garden. Filled with personal anecdotes and stories from other women farmers, from old hands to brand new ones, from agricultural icons like Temple Grandin, to her own sister, this book is a reassuring and inspirational guide that discusses: Should you do an internship or jump right in? How to find a farm or how to handle one that you’ve inherited Best practices for selling at the farmer’s market and how to sell your goods locally Farmhouse chores and how to get them done right How to handle large power tools, including a chainsaw Planning and growing an organic farm garden Incorporating animals as part of a farm ecosystem Where to get started if you want to farm-school your kids Tips for keeping your mind, body and spirit healthy while undertaking the demanding nature of farm work It's all here, in the same warm and friendly voice that readers embraced in The Joy of Hobby Farming. Full-color photography throughout provides step-by-step instructions for anything you’ll need to do on your farm.

    Reflecting the very latest research, this book provides a critical review of the ways in which resilience of social-ecological systems, and the ecosystem services they provide, can be enhanced. With contributions from leaders in the field, the chapters are structured around seven key principles for building resilience: maintain diversity and redundancy; manage connectivity; manage slow variables and feedbacks; foster complex adaptive systems thinking; encourage learning; broaden participation; and promote polycentric governance. The authors assess the evidence in support of these principles, discussing their practical application and outlining further research needs. Intended for researchers, practitioners and graduate students, this is an ideal resource for anyone working in resilience science and for those in the broader fields of sustainability science, environmental management and governance.

    No hobby farm is complete without critters…possibly a small herd peppering the field or a microflock flapping around the hen house or pond. A single information-packed volume with everything a hobby farmer needs to know about farm animals, this new comprehensive manual to selecting, caring for, and breeding livestock brings forth the expertise of six hobby farmers, each of whom has real-life on-the-farm experience with the animals she discusses. Whether you’re contemplating adding a small herd of sheep or goats to your existing hobby farm or you’ve always wondered about the benefits of raising angora rabbits or Muscovy ducks, Livestock for Your Hobby Farm provides the kind of guidance you need to begin a herd or flock and expand your pens and fencing. With exhaustive detail, the authors offer complete coverage of chickens, ducks, goats, sheep, cattle, pigs, and rabbits, including the housing, health-care, special needs, advantages and challenges of each.-Extensive sections devoted to the seven major farm animals, including profiles of the most popular breeds and varieties-Detailed how-to chapters on the care, handling, feeding, health, and safety of each animal-Special chapters devoted to the breeding and raising of young animals-Recommendations for ways of capitalizing on your livestock’s output, from selling eggs, milk, fiber, and so forth-Tips for troubleshooting potential problems and warding off diseases, parasites, and predators

    Using research on contemporary Maya farming techniques and important new archaeological research, Ford and Nigh refute this Malthusian explanation of events in ancient Central America and posit a radical alternative theory. The authorsshow that ancient Maya farmers developed ingenious, sustainable woodland techniques to cultivate numerous food plants (including the staple maize);examine both contemporary tropical farming techniques and the archaeological record (particularly regarding climate) to reach their conclusions;make the argument that these ancient techniques, still in use today, can support significant populations over long periods of time.

    Ian Scoones delves into the history of livelihoods thinking, reflects on the links to studies of poverty and wellbeing and discusses the array of livelihood frameworks and their potentials and limitations.

    A growing body of evidence has proven that its current cornerstone—incentives to attract and retain large, globally mobile businesses—is a dead end. Even those programs that focus on local business, through buy-local initiatives, for example, depend on ongoing support from government or philanthropy. The entire practice of economic development has become ineffective and unaffordable and is in need of a makeover.  The Local Economy Solution suggests an alternative approach in which states and cities nurture a new generation of special kinds of businesses that help local businesses grow. These cutting-edge companies, which Shuman calls “pollinator businesses,” are creating jobs and the conditions for future economic growth, and doing so in self-financing ways.  Pollinator businesses are especially important to communities that are struggling to lift themselves up in a period of economic austerity, when municipal budgets are being slashed. They also promote locally owned businesses that increase local self-reliance and evince high labor and environmental standards.  The book includes nearly two dozen case studies of successful pollinator businesses that are creatively facilitating business and neighborhood improvements, entrepreneurship, local purchasing, local investing, and profitable business partnerships. Examples include Main Street Genome (which provides invaluable data to improve local business performance), Supportland (which is developing a powerful loyalty card for local businesses), and Fledge (a business accelerator that finances itself through royalty payments). It also shows how the right kinds of public policy can encourage the spread of pollinator businesses at virtually no cost.

    Every root system presented in this book was drawn by people literally working in the trenches, sketching the roots where they grew.The text provides a verydetailed review of all aspects of transplanting; describes how roots work their magic to improve soil nutrients; investigates the hidden life of soil microbes and their mysterious relationship to roots; explores the question of whether deep roots really gather more unique nutrients than shallow roots; shares the latest research about the mysteries of mycorrhizal (good fungal) association; shows you exactly where to put your fertilizer, compost, water, and mulch to help plants flourish; tells you why gray water increases crop yields more than fresh water; and, most importantly, reveals the science behind all the above (with citations for each scientific paper).This book contains at least eighty percent more new information, more results of the latest in-depth and up-to-date explorations, and even more helpful guidelines on roots than the author s previous book (Roots Demystified: Change Your Garden Habits to Help Roots Thrive). This is not a revised edition it s a whole new stand-alone book."

    

    Arguing that an optimally productive soil contains a balance of inorganic minerals, organic materials and living organisms, he relies less on modern improvements than on "the things we’ve learned by improving fertility in a natural, sustainable way over many years." This book offers invaluable scientific support for committed organic farmers as well as conventional farmers who'd like to reduce chemical inputs and use natural processes to their advantage. Advancing Biological Farming updates and expands upon Gary Zimmer's classic, The Biological Farmer. Technically precise yet written in friendly language, this book is for everyone who wants a future in biological farming.

    Before its collapse in the 1920s, the League counted over 250,000 paying members, spread to thirteen states and two Canadian provinces, controlled North Dakota’s state government, and birthed new farmer-labor alliances. Yet today it is all but forgotten, neglected even by scholars. Michael J. Lansing aims to change that. Insurgent Democracy offers a new look at the Nonpartisan League and a new way to understand its rise and fall in the United States and Canada. Lansing argues that, rather than a spasm of populist rage that inevitably burned itself out, the story of the League is in fact an instructive example of how popular movements can create lasting change. Depicting the League as a transnational response to economic inequity, Lansing not only resurrects its story of citizen activism, but also allows us to see its potential to inform contemporary movements.

    Traditionally humans move around more than other animals, but in modernity the global mobility of persons and the factors of production increasingly disrupts the sense of place that is an intrinsic part of the human experience of being on earth. Industrial development and fossil fuelled mobility negatively impact the sense of place and help to foster a culture of placelessness where buildings, fields and houses increasingly display a monotonous aesthetic. At the same time ecological habitats, and diverse communities of species are degraded. Romantic resistance to the industrial evisceration of place and ecological diversity involved the setting aside of scenic or sublime landscapes as wilderness areas or parks. However the implication of this project is that human dwelling and ecological sustainability are intrinsically at odds.In this collection of essays Michael Northcott argues that the sense of the sacred which emanates from local communities of faith sustained a 'parochial ecology' which, over the centuries, shaped communities that were more socially just and ecologically sustainable than the kinds of exchange relationships and settlement patterns fostered by a global and place-blind economy. Hence Christian communities in medieval Europe fostered the distributed use and intergenerational care of common resources, such as alpine meadows, forests or river catchments. But contemporary political economists neglect the role of boundaried places, and spatial limits, in the welfare of human and ecological communities. Northcott argues that place-based forms of community, dwelling and exchange – such as a local food economy – more closely resemble evolved commons governance arrangements, and facilitate the revival of a sense of neighbourhood, and of reconnection between persons and the ecological places in which they dwell.

    The book begins in 1786, when a French expedition brought the potato from Chile to California, and it concludes with Chilean president Michelle Bachelet’s diplomatic visit to the Golden State in 2008. During the intervening centuries, new crops, foods, fertilizers, mining technologies, laborers, and ideas from Chile radically altered California's development. In turn, Californian systems of servitude, exotic species, educational programs, and capitalist development strategies dramatically shaped Chilean history.   Edward Dallam Melillo develops a new set of historical perspectives—tracing eastward-moving trends in U.S. history, uncovering South American influences on North America’s development, and reframing the Western Hemisphere from a Pacific vantage point. His innovative approach yields transnational insights and recovers long-forgotten connections between the peoples and ecosystems of Chile and California.

    Bring it on!” —Permaculture Magazine Permaculture is more popular than ever, but it can still be a daunting concept. If you are new to permaculture and interested in learning more, Practical Permaculture offers authoritative, in-depth, and hands-on advice for a more holistic approach to sustainable living. Jessi Bloom and Dave Boehnlein, two dynamic leaders in the permaculture community, explain the basics of permaculture, share their design process, and explore various permaculture systems including soil, water, waste, energy, shelter, food and plants, and animals and wildlife. They also profile the fifty most useful plants for permaculture landscapes.

    Well, unless you're growing fruits, vegetables, or grains for brewing that is. Gardening for the Homebrewer is an introduction to the wide variety of plants that you can use for fermentations or infusions. Learn how to tell if your yard is a perfect site for barley or whether it's better suited to a fragrant collection of herbs. Learn how to grow, dry, and store fresh hops. Or go off the beaten path and grow everything you need for your first gruit, cider, perry, or fruit wine. Have just a balcony or a windowsill? No problem! A variety of plant recommendations will suit gardeners of all types, even ones with limited space.

    Each of the trees or tree groups includes details of:- Origin and history- Description and uses- Varieties/cultivars- Cultivation, pests, and diseases- Related species- European and North American suppliers- Color photos with every entry.The appendices make choosing trees for your situation easy, with lists of suitable trees for specific situations, plus flowcharts to guide you. If you want to know about and make use of the large diversity of tree crops that are available in temperate and continental climates, then this book--by an internationally acknowledged expert--is both fascinating and essential reading.

    'Wisconsin Agriculture' should be required reading in history classes from high school to the collegiate level. It makes me thankful that Jerry Apps has such a sense of commitment to Wisconsin's agricultural heritage--and to getting the story right." --Pam Jahnke, Farm Director, Wisconsin Farm Report RadioWisconsin has been a farming state from its very beginnings. And though it's long been known as "the Dairy State," it produces much more than cows, milk, and cheese. In fact, Wisconsin is one of the most diverse agricultural states in the nation.The story of farming in Wisconsin is rich and diverse as well, and the threads of that story are related and intertwined. In this long-awaited volume, celebrated rural historian Jerry Apps examines everything from the fundamental influences of landscape and weather to complex matters of ethnic and pioneer settlement patterns, changing technology, agricultural research and education, and government regulations and policies. Along with expected topics, such as the cranberry industry and artisan cheesemaking, "Wisconsin Agriculture" delves into beef cattle and dairy goats, fur farming and Christmas trees, maple syrup and honey, and other specialty crops, including ginseng, hemp, cherries, sugar beets, mint, sphagnum moss, flax, and hops. Apps also explores new and rediscovered farming endeavors, from aquaculture to urban farming to beekeeping, and discusses recent political developments, such as the 2014 Farm Bill and its ramifications. And he looks to the future of farming, contemplating questions of ethical growing practices, food safety, sustainability, and the potential effects of climate change.Featuring first-person accounts from the settlement era to today, along with more than 200 captivating photographs, "Wisconsin Agriculture" breathes life into the facts and figures of 150 years of farming history and provides compelling insights into the state's agricultural past, present, and future.Jerry Apps is a Professor Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

    In this Spring/Summer 2015 issue, contributions from inside and outside the worlds of food and architecture -- from chefs and architects to artists, critics, entrepreneurs, lawyers, and eaters -- highlight the many parallels between cuisine and architecture (beyond the basic needs for food and shelter) and demonstrate that food is everywhere and in everything. Guest edited by Jan A man and Savinien Caracostea of AtelierSlice, Log 34 features renowned chefs, including Ferran Adria , Dan Barber, Massimo Bottura, Magnus Nilsson, Jacques Pepin, and Christina Tosi, as well as critically acclaimed artists like Carsten Holler, Tobias Rehberger, and Rirkrit Tiravanija.

    It describes fast and effective revival methods and technologies from tsunami and radiation damages, demonstrated through the collaborative efforts of researchers, students, local farmers, forest owners, and municipalities gathered under the Tokyo University of Agriculture East Japan Assistance Project. Consisting of four parts, the first part of the book provides an overview of the damage and measures taken to overcome them by the local municipalities and the Tokyo University of Agriculture. The second part presents data and results of agricultural recovery from the tsunami—for example, monitoring systems, reconstruction models, and convenient, low-cost methods developed for the restoration of tsunami-damaged paddy fields. The third part focuses on recovery from radiation-contaminated farmlands and forests and consequent reputational damages. Included are various primary data obtained from field experiments and surveys, studies on the mechanism of contamination, and the results of radical monitoring, decontamination, and restoration techniques performed at this site. The final part is a collection of reflections of local farmers, forest owners, and students who participated in the project. The academic trials and errors recorded in this book are an invaluable contribution to disaster management and recovery processes. It is written for a wide audience, not limited to researchers and students, but also for government and state officials, municipalities, agricultural cooperative staff members, and farmers.

    In Six Steps Back to the Land, he explains how we can achieve that, and have truly sustainable, resilient and productive farms, looking at:why we need to rethink our approach to farming; how we can move to low-input mixed farms; how tightly-integrated farms employ many skilled people; dealing with the practicalities of this form of farming in today's world; and how we can get involved. Six Steps will inspire anyone to take an interest in our food chain and make a difference.

    This manual details aquaponics for small-scale production--predominantly for home use. It is divided into nine chapters and seven annexes, with each chapter dedicated to an individual module of aquaponics. The target audience for this manual is agriculture extension agents, regional fisheries officers, non-governmental organizations, community organizers, government ministers, companies and singles worldwide. The intention is to bring a general understanding of aquaponics to people who previously may have only known about one aspect.