Book Description

A quick pick-me-up or a subtle beverage with an aroma that conjures up images of special moments shared with special people?
There's more to coffee than that. Apart from being a beautiful tree with fragrant flowers, coffee is also a culture, practically a religion to a certain elite and certainly a source of income to millions of people, rich and poor alike.
Coffee professionals around the world will find the specific information they need in this lavishly illustrated and practical work designed to answer all their questions about the coffee plant and how it is grown, harvested, processed and refined.
Specialists and experienced professionals were consulted and some 40 renowned international experts have contributed their specific knowledge and expertise to this comprehensive handbook, covering such topics as:
* Growing
* Pests, diseases, and their control
* Harvesting and processing
* Storage, shipment, quality
* The latest economical and technological aspects.
In addition, special indexes demystify such confusing data as information sources, conversion tables and other technicalities. With its 40 chapters, over 1000 pages and 900 superb illustrations, this is a universally reliable manual, providing basic guidelines and recommendations applicable everywhere, and not geared to any specific country.
... Read more

Book Description

World Agriculture and the Environment presents a unique assessment of agricultural commodity production and the environmental problems it causes, along with prescriptions for increasing efficiency and reducing damage to natural systems. Drawing on his extensive travel and research in agricultural regions around the world, and employing statistics from a range of authoritative sources including the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization,the author examines twenty of the world?s major crops, including beef, coffee, corn, rice, rubber, shrimp, sorghum, tea, and tobacco. For each crop, he offers comparative information including:

? a ?fast facts? overview section that summarizes key data for the crop
? main producing and consuming countries
? main types of production
? market trend information and market chain analyses
? major environmental impacts
? management strategies and best practices
? key contacts and references

Reviews (1)

Superb reference
This is a superb and unique reference. It provides an incredible amount of detail on crops that enter world trade, and their impact on the environment.
The very best thing about this book is that it is not strident and does not blatantly advocate a particular political agenda. It is written in a scientific, objective tone that makes it far more convincing than the rhetorical works. Only when he comes to tobacco (a crop that ruins the environment AND then ruins the consumers) does he use a few value-laden words!
The reader is struck by what a mess the world is in, and how easily we could fix a lot of that. The book provides enormous detail on soil erosion, chemical use, biodiversity reduction, and the rest of our woes, but it presents equal detail on how to prevent those problems. Only a few crops (notably cotton, salmon, chocolate) would be hard to manage well.
Two social themes stand out: first, the very rapid concentration of commodity trade in the hands of a very few firms; second, the degree to which governments subsidize production-at-any-cost as opposed to production-with-environmental-protection. (Subsidizing includes nonlegal subsidies, such as letting the rich get away with breaking environmental laws and dumping huge costs on poorer neighbors.) One cannot escape the conclusion that changing this subsidy structure would fix most of the damage, worldwide.
Environmentalists should think more about subsidies!
Meanwhile, what can a concerned reader do? The book tells how to seek out shade-grown coffee, responsibly raised beef and paper, and so on. It is much harder, at least in the US, to find decently-produced soybeans or corn or wheat, but you can do it. Cotton is a special problem, and the alternatives to it are mostly worse. The hemp advocates will be vocal!
We are in such a mess, and it would be so easy to do so much.... This is not a time to lose hope or give up. By providing the big picture, this book should make every concerned citizen stop and think. The few errors I could spot in the book are trivial ones.
This is an absolute must-read and must-have for anyone who works on problems of production and environment or on problems of world food supply and health. ... Read more

Book Description

Fatal Harvest takes an unprecedented look at our current ecologically destructive agricultural system and offers a compelling vision for an organic and environmentally safer way of producing the food we eat. It includes more than 250 profound and startling photographs and gathers together more than 40 essays by leading ecological thinkers including Wendell Berry, Wes Jackson, David Ehrenfeld, Helena Norberg-Hodge, Vandana Shiva, and Gary Nabhan. Its scope and photo-driven approach provide a unique and invaluable antidote to the efforts by agribusiness to obscure and disconnect us from the truth about industrialized foods.

The book's many photographs and essays offer graphic testimony to the tragic consequences of how our food is produced. Readers will come to see that industrial food production is indeed a "fatal harvest" - fatal to consumers, as pesticide residues and new disease vectors such as E. coli and "mad cow disease" find their way into our food supply; fatal to our landscapes, as chemical runoff from factory farms poison our rivers and groundwater; fatal to genetic diversity, as farmers rely increasingly on high-yield monocultures and genetically engineered crops; and fatal to our farm communities, which are wiped out by huge corporate farms.

As it exposes the ecological and social impacts of industrial agriculture's fatal harvest, the book also details a new ecological and humane vision for agriculture. It shows how millions of people are engaged in the new politics of food as they work to develop a better alternative to the current chemically fed and biotechnology-driven system. Designed to aid the movement to reform industrial agriculture, Fatal Harvest will inform and influence the activists, farmers, policymakers, and consumers who are seeking a safer and more sustainable food future. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

Congratulations to those who prepared this volume
When I received this book recently as a gift I was completely overwhelmed. Overwhelmed by the considerateness of the donor. Overwhelmed by the high quality of the production. Overwhelmed by the large number of "big names" who had contributed. Overwhelmed by the quality and meaningfulness of the photographs. Overwhelmed by the quality of the message that it gets across. Overwhelmed by the ammunition it gives me in my own personal drive for safer, more reliable food. Overwhelmed by how helpful it will be to the waverers who have not yet plucked up the courage to break their links with the chemical establishment.

Let me start with the photos which are not only high quality but extremely helpful because side by side we are given a picture of crops grown under two systems which represent the two poles of producing our food. The text on the left page goes like this: "Industrial Eye: see what you are looking at: MELONS: More than half the melons sold in the U.S. are grown in California where industrial melon farms stretch for miles and miles ... Two of the most heavily used toxins in industrial melon production are ... Life is also difficult for the melon pickers ..." On the right page we have: "Agrarian Eye: See what you are looking at: MELONS: These melons are one crop among dozens at the Live Earth's 23-acre farm near Santa Cruz, CA. The melons are part of a diverse system of annual and perennial fruit and vegetable crops that rely on soil health to support the plant's natural ability to deter pests. But it's not done so easily - there are many challenges ... Coastal fog also poses potential fungal problems for melons, which Broz addresses by using fungal-resistant varieties of melons ... The melons are sold at local farmers' markets and through the farm's community supported agriculture (CSA) program, where families receive a weekly box of seasonal fruits and vegetables throughout the growing season."

Next the text. "Part One: Farming as if Nature Mattered: Breaking the Industrial Paradigm" is composed of seven articles such as "Global Monoculture: The Worldwide Destruction of Diversity". Then "Part Two: Corporate Lies: Busting the Myths of Industrial Agriculture" is composed of articles each addressing one of the seven myths such as "Myth Two: Industrial Food is Safe, Healthy and Nutritious". The book continues through to "Part Seven: Organic and Beyond: Revisioning Agriculture for the 21st Century" with nine more articles such as "The Ethics of Eating: Why Environmentalism Starts at the Breakfast Table."

In these 370 pages we have all the information we need to convince those sitting on the fence that we must reduce our dependence on industrial agriculture. When confronted with this volume it is difficult to imagine how all those involved in the industrial agricultural chain will be able to put up an effective argument. On the contrary, it should be convincing to the thinking service organization that this is where their future profits lie and they should climb on the band wagon helping rather than hindering. For the farmer who is wavering - and probably for good reasons as his livelihood is affected - he will find in this volume the encouragement he needs; others have forged the trail and he can follow in the knowledge that the forerunners have solved the major problems.

Bravo to all those concerned with the preparation of this volume. You have done mankind a great service. It is a long tunnel down which we are travelling, but I for one can now see the light in the distance. Because of your initiative the rest of us will travel our own path with more confidence and with greater speed. At last we can hope for some sanity in our food production. If we can get this volume into the hands of enough people - people who care - then we really can change the world. If Silent Spring was the book that woke the world to the evils of indiscriminate chemical use, then this volume will go down as the one that banged home the last nail in the coffin of industrial agriculture.

The agrarian position
The central message of this rather large book (put some legs on it and it could serve as a coffee table itself) is that industrial agriculture is unnatural, inhumane, dangerous; that big farms and big chemical multinationals are destroying the land and causing massive hardship for not only the ecology of the planet but for humans as well.

One of the arguments is that industrial agriculture actually leads to hunger and starvation for millions because it forces people off the land, land that is then used to produce foods or other products that are exported to the developed nations. The poor farmer cannot compete with the industrial farms and so has to go out of business. In the underdeveloped countries, land that once supported a variety of food plants that fed the local people has been turned into land that supports only a single crop destined for export, the profits going to middle men and the large land owners.

Clearly then, this is a polemic against industrial agriculture and in favor of a return to an agrarian life style. It is a tract against the use of pesticides and herbicides and in favor of organic farming. It is against monoculture farming and in favor of biodiversity and crop rotation. It is against genetic modified foods and Round Up ready seeds and in favor of the slightly blemished but flavorful produce from fields tended by hand and hoe. It is beautifully illustrated with breath-taking photos of farms, farmers, farm equipment and especially fields of verdant crops.

I am in substantial sympathy with the message of this book, but I do not appreciate facile or phony arguments in support of even the most agreeable message. I think unsubstantiated claims and superficial understandings do not help a worthy cause. Unfortunately there are a few of those in these pages.

On page 62, for example, the text suggests that "if biotech corporations really wanted to feed the hungry, they would...push for wealth redistribution, which would allow the poor to buy food." Obviously corporations don't work that way, and agrarian reform is not going to be helped by reviving delusive Marxist economics. On page 71 it is written, "...75 types of vegetables, or approximately 97 percent of the varieties available in 1900, [in the US] are now extinct." I am not sure what was left out here or misstated, but obviously more than about 2.34 vegetables (the 3% still extant) are still available. Worse yet is this from page 102: "In 1996...the fungal disease known as Karnal Bunt swept through the U.S. wheat belt, ruining over half of that year's crop and forcing the quarantine of more than 290,000 acres." However on page 100 it is reported that wheat fields take up "a total of 60-70 million acres" of land in the continental US. So how can a infestation that resulted in a quarantine of 290,000 acres (less than one-half of one percent of the total acreage devoted to wheat) ruin "over half of that year's crop"? Such slips tend to cast doubt on the credibility of the other figures in the book.

However, the central shortcoming of this otherwise laudable effort is the disinclination of the editor and the contributors to point to overpopulation as the root cause of hunger and starvation. Such a studied avoidance is disingenuous to say the least. The periodic starvations due to droughts that plague such places as Africa are due to too many people living on land that cannot reliably support them. In times of feast, the populations shoot up only to crash when the weather changes, as it must, as it has for millions of years. Furthermore to suggest (as the text on pages 50 and 51 does) that agriculture can keep pace with human population growth is mistaken. Fortunately, the essay, "The Impossible Race: Population Growth and the Fallacies of Agricultural Hope," by Hugh H. Iltis, which begins on page 35, presents a more realistic view.

Nonetheless, I applaud this effort by director Douglas Tompkins and those who contributed to the project. I was particularly taken with the photography and art design by Daniella Goff-Sklan who carefully avoids any "scare" photography. We are spared the sight of the bloated bellies of the starving poor. There are no photos of the horrendous conditions inside the poultry and meat packing industries. Clearly, the editors didn't want this book to be purely a propaganda piece. They wanted to get their message across without controversy; they wanted to be effective.

I am also in substantial sympathy with the agrarian movement itself. However whether it is possible or even desirable to return to an agrarian existence is in great doubt. Perhaps one might wax even more romantic and suggest a return to a hunting and gathering existence. Such nostalgic fantasies are just that, fantasies, like the notion of the noble savage or of an unspoiled garden of Eden. Humans have and will continue to alter the landscape. What I hope is that we find a balance between human needs and the needs of the planet's ecosystems before it is too late. Yes, a return to an agrarian culture (especially without the feudalism and warlord economies that existed concomitantly) would be a step away from the abyss that we are now approaching. But that isn't going to happen anytime soon. The surest way to save the planet from ourselves is to reduce our numbers. Until that message gets across, the planet will continue to be decimated by our insatiable desire to exploit and control. My vision of the future includes a large number of small farming communities with single family farms aplenty. But it also includes great tracts of forest and savannah, desert and tundra, unspoiled by human habitation. From my point of view the planet already contains too many humans. And that is why my vision and the agrarian vision so beloved by contributor Wendell Berry cannot yet become a reality.

A stunning indictment of large scale industrial farming
A coffee table book about the dangerous practices of industrial agriculture might not be the most appetizing addition to your coffee break, especially if you are dining on food composed of conventionally grown ingredients. But this book does such a compelling job of cataloging the failures and hazards of traditional American agriculture - as well as the solutions - that you won't be able to put it down, despite the hard-to-swallow truths about our unsustainable food system.

Fatal Harvest features impressive design, stunning photography and intriguing side-by-side comparisons of industrial versus agrarian based agriculture systems. Thoughtful essays by leading agricultural thinkers complement the commanding images. If you need one book to show you how our current food system is not only unsustainable but also hazardous to you, your family, the environment and wildlife, this is it. It should be required reading in agriculture schools, Cooperative Extension agencies, the halls of Congress and anywhere else that the seeds of future farming policy are sown, for if we don't work to change this system, we will face many more farm crises in the future.

For years we have been told that American farmers must grow bigger, use more chemicals and genetically engineered organisms to 'feed the world.' The current rate of soil loss, chemical damage and crop failures expose how this corporate model of farming will soon exhaust the land and water supply, poisoning the very earth that is supposed to sustain us. We will no longer be able to feed the world, and perhaps ourselves, unless farming policies and practices change. This book not only offers stark evidence of agriculture's dirty little secrets, but real world solutions to the problems industrial agriculture create. ... Read more

Book Description

Innovative farmers and ranchers know that alternative crops and value-added products give them an edge in the marketplace. Effective planning is crucial to the long-term profitability of any new venture. Building a Sustainable Business brings the business planning process alive to help alternative and sustainable agriculture entrepreneurs transform farm-grown inspiration into profitable enterprises.

The step-by-step strategies help you develop a detailed, lender-ready business plan or map out ways to take advantage of new opportunities, such as:
Organic farming
Agri-tourism
On-farm processing
Alternative crops
Direct marketing
Adding value

Much more than a planning document, Building a Sustainable Business follows dairy farmers Dave and Florence Minar through a major transition on their Minnesota farm. The Minars’ experiences and excerpts from their sample worksheets lend a real-life perspective, illustrating how they and five other farm families set goals, researched alternatives, determined potential markets and evaluated financing options. Blank worksheets in the book help you create and organize your own plan.

Your business plan will demonstrate that you have fully researched your idea, mapped out production and marketing strategies, and that you know how to sell your product. ... Read more

Book Description

Book Description

Since 1990, Scott Chaskey has worked as a land steward and farmer for the Peconic LandTrust at Quail Hill Farm in Amagansett, New York, an organic community farm. Overthe years, he has recorded his meditations on weather, wildlife, soil, seed, root, plant, andflower, and in This Common Ground, he has organized some of these reflectionsseason by season, through the course of one year on the farm. Chaskey’s observationsreflect a doer’s respect for the rhetoric of the fields and a firsthand knowledge of theinterdependence of soils, plants, animals, and humans. His contagious sense of wonderand artistic sensibility illustrate why planting and reaping are such an important part ofwhat defines the human community and the human condition.

Like Joan Gussow’s This Organic Life or Verlyn Klinkenborg’s The RuralLife, this inspirational evocation of a life spent working the earth is certain tobecome a classic of nature writing, as well as appealing to today’s burgeoning organiclifestyle audience. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

This Common Ground : Seasons on an Organic Farm
Farmer and Poet Scott Chaskey gives us this wonderful work following his journey on his South Fork farm for a year. Follow Chaskey through the spring, summer, autumn, and Winter as he learns and explores life on this organic farm.This book appeals to the senses and to the heart.**** ... Read more

Book Description

Although food-production systems for the world's rural poor typically have had devastating effects on the planet's wealth of genes, species, and ecosystems, that need not be the case in the future. In Ecoagriculture, two of the world's leading experts on conservation and development examine the idea that agricultural landscapes can be designed more creatively to take the needs of human populations into account while also protecting, or even enhancing, biodiversity. They present a thorough overview of the innovative concept of "ecoagriculture"?the management of landscapes for both the production of food and the conservation of wild biodiversity. The book:

• examines the global impact of agriculture on wild biodiversity
• describes the challenge of reconciling biodiversity conservation and agricultural goals
• outlines and discusses the ecoagriculture approach
• presents diverse case studies that illustrate key strategies
• explores how policies, markets, and institutions can be re-shaped to support ecoagriculture

Ecoagriculture explores new approaches to agricultural production that complement natural environments, enhance ecosystem function, and improve rural livelihoods. It features a wealth of real-world case studies that demonstrate the applicability of the ideas discussed and how the principles can be applied, and is an important new work for policymakers, students, researchers, and anyone concerned with conserving biodiversity while sustaining human populations. ... Read more

Book Description

Building on the success of the first edition and responding to an overwhelming demand for farmer-ready information, the second edition of Managing Cover Crops Profitably explores how and why cover crops work and provides all the information needed to build cover crops into any farming operation. This is the most comprehensive book ever published on the use of cover crops to sustain cropping systems and build soil.

Detailed charts of cover crop characteristics and management, adaptation maps and essays on soil fertility, crop rotations, pest management and cover crop selection are followed by comprehensive chapters on 18 of the most commonly used and widely adapted cover crops for the continental United States.Also includes:

Appendix of other cover crops to consider

List of seed sourcesList of cover crop experts nationwideIndex, bibliography and suggestions for further readingCover crop resources on the World Wide Web ... Read more

Book Description

Recognition of the importance of soil organic matter (SOM) in soil health and quality is a major part of fostering a holistic, preventive approach to agricultural management. Students in agronomy, horticulture, and soil science need a textbook that emphasizes strategies for using SOM managementin the prevention of chemical, biological, and physical problems.Soil Organic Matter in Sustainable Agriculture gathers key scientific reviews concerning issues that are critical for successful SOM management. This textbook contains evaluations of the types of organic soil constituents-organisms, fresh residues, and well-decomposed substances. It explores the beneficial effects of organic matter on soil and the various practices that enhance SOM. Chapters include an examination of the results of crop management practices on soil organisms, organic matter gains and losses, the significance of various SOM fractions, and the contributions of fungi and earthworms to soil quality and crop growth.Emphasizing the prevention of imbalances that lead to soil and crop problems, the text also explores the development of soils suppressive to plant diseases and pests, and relates SOM management tothe supply of nutrients to crops. This book provides the essential scientific background and poses the challenging questions that students need to better understand SOM and develop improved soil and crop management systems. ... Read more

Book Description

Agroforestry in Sustainable Agricultural Systems examines the environmental and social conditions that affect the roles and performance of trees in field-and forest-based agricultural production systems. Various types of ecological setttings for agroforestry are analyzed within temperate and tropical regions. The roles of soil, water, light, nutrient and pest management in mixed, annual, woody perennial and livestock systems are discussed. Important new case studies from around the world offer innovative strategies that have been used successfully in raising forests and tree products on a sustainable basis for commercial harvesting and for providing other environmental services in land conservation and watershed management. ... Read more

Book Description

Over the past decade, organic products have become the fastest growing sector of agriculture, with an annual increase of at least 20 percent. This book explains why organic production and consumption have seen such phenomenal growth in recent years-and, even more important, why they should. A clear-eyed, close-up look at the compelling reasons for organic farming and the methods that make it work, Good Growing begins with a frank account of the problems with conventional industrial agriculture-the pesticide use, pollution, and corporate control that have undermined public health and devastated rural towns and family farms.

In-depth interviews with working organic farmers from across the country bring to life the facts and figures that Leslie Duram sets out in her extensive overview of the realities of organic farming today. Farmers with very different operations in California, Colorado, Illinois, Florida, and upstate New York give us an intimate understanding of the ecological, social, economic, and personal factors that shape their farming experiences. We also learn firsthand about the attractions and pleasures as well as the problems and concerns that accompany organic farming. With its comprehensive view of the status of farming and its compelling portraits of organic farmers, Good Growing is, finally, a work of scientific advocacy describing a course of action, based on the best research available, to improve the health of agriculture in our day.

Leslie A. Duram is an associate professor and chair of the Department of Geography and Environmental Resources at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale. ... Read more

Book Description

The long-awaited exploration of permaculture specifically for cooler Northern Hemisphere climates is finally here! Already regarded as the definitive book on the subject, The Earth Care Manual is accessible to the curious novice as much as it is essential for the knowledgeable practitioner.

Permaculture started out in the 1970s as a sustainable alternative to modern agriculture, taking its inspiration from natural ecosystems. It has always placed an emphasis on gardening, but since then it has expanded to include many other aspects, from community design to energy use. It can be seen as an overall framework that puts a diversity of green ideas into perspective. Its aims are low work, high output, and genuine sustainability. ... Read more

Book Description

Healthy soils are key to producing good harvests with minimal pest problems. How to create that balanced soil ecosystem, however, remains a challenge for even the most experienced growers.

Building Soils for Better Crops unlocks the secret of maintaining a diverse ecosystem below ground to foster healthy crops above. Ecological soil management, as detailed by the soil experts who wrote the book, can raise fertility — and yields —while reducing environmental impacts. The 240-page Building Soils contains detailed information about soil structure and the management practices that affect soils, as well as practical information like how to interpret soil test results.

Some of the soil-building strategies include:

• Increasing soil organic matter• Using appropriate tillage• Incorporating animal manures• Making and using composts• Integrating cover crops into rotations• Reducing erosion• Methods to avoid and decrease soil compaction ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Importance of healthy soils
This is the best, practical guide to understanding how whole soil systems work that I have read. Written in clear, illustrative language, it makes the world of soils accessible to farmers and beginning students, as well as soil science professionals. ... Read more

Book Description

Foreword by Barbara Kingsolver

A compelling worldview with advocates from around the globe, agrarianism challenges the shortcomings of our industrial and technological economy. Not simply focused on farming, the agrarian outlook encourages us to develop practices and policies that promote the health of land, community, and culture. Agrarianism reminds us that no matter how urban we become, our survival will always be inextricably linked to the precious resources of soil, water, and air. This understanding demands that we become active caregivers of the earth and its life-giving sources.

Combining fresh insights from the disciplines of education, law, history, urban and regional planning, economics, philosophy, religion, ecology, politics, and agriculture, these original essays develop a sophisticated critique of our culture’s current relationship to the land, while offering practical alternatives. Leading agrarians, including Wendell Berry, Vandana Shiva, Wes Jackson, Gene Logsdon, Brian Donahue, Eric Freyfogle, and David Orr, explain how our goals should be redirected toward genuinely sustainable communities. These writers lament the shortsightedness of economic and political ambition, and call us to an honest accounting and correction of our often destructive ways. They suggest how our society can take practical steps toward integrating soils, watersheds, forests, wildlife, urban areas, and human populations into one great system—a responsible flourishing of our world and culture. The Essential Agrarian Reader calls us to celebrate the gifts of the earth, a celebration manifested in honest work and respect for the land. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

The agrarian ethic is essential to our survival
As a fan of Barbara Kingsolver's nonfiction I recommend the book's Foreword, in particular, for a personal and incisive statement of the agrarian ethic and its relevance for this time. Editor Norman Wirzba's counsel that we cannot live well if we do not attend to the human and non-human "bonds of relationship" is also of deep import in an age of mindless surfeit masquerading as self-realization. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

Green Speak is Good Henry Shocley
This book is a marvelous example of the way we should manage our lives. Too many people use and dispose of things without care of how it will affect future generations or themselves. This book explains practical solutions for everyday energy, food, and solid wastes. If you are Henry Shocley or anyone who does not care about their impact on the environment, you should not purchase this book. It is not a get rich quick scheme.

This book has some serious problems
Solviva-How to Grow $500,000 on One Acre & Peace On Earth. This
is a strange book! A How-To book it is not. It is a hodge podge of
thoughts, green speak, observations, the authors past 20 years of
life, some interesting applications of solar structures, much green
speak, her experience with a greenhouse and the business it generated,
more green speak, ...full-color pictures of plants, animals, insects,
artwork, green speak, and lastly green speak. Whether wrote this way
on purpose or not it is confusing. It is a very disjointed book; more
about a persons philosophy of life than about a greenhouse that was
heated and cooled by strictly solar methods. The books layout and
progression is far from logical and it is quite a chore wadding
through all of the philosophizing to arrive at some meat. Does this
book have value? Some. But cut out all of the psycho babble, green
speak and moralizing, rearrange the contents, do some more homework on
solar and other peoples projects and failures, get a few scientific
facts verified, more data and details on what Mss Edey did and did not
do, then perhaps it might be a worthwhile book. One glaring lack, at
least as far as I am concerned; it is not a How To book. Maybe that
is not a big issue when one is writing in a diary, but when the books
title page uses that term and the book does not deliver, then it is a
major issue. The income generating potential of a solar heated
greenhouse that uses strict organic methods has a lot of merit and
expanded outdoors during the summer months one could expect that the
income would increase. She makes a claim that $500,000 is possible
with the 10,000 sq. ft. greenhouse and about an acre of land. She
never made that much on her operation and extrapolates from her own
experiences that it is possible. I would take that with a cup of
salt. She very well may be right but she has no proof. She didn't do
it and did not mention anyone else that had. So again the title of
the book is misleading. Some interesting things gleaned from the book:
1. It is possible to heat a greenhouse completely with solar
means. 2. It is possible to cool a greenhouse completely with solar
means. 3. A living could be made from the above greenhouse. 4.
Animals incorporated into the greenhouse environment can enhance the
quality of the plants by emitting co2 and they can provide another
source of income.

There may be some other things but as I said you
will have to dig for them....

Very practical, lots of great ideas, nice color pictures.
"Solviva: How to grow $500,000 on one acre and peace on earth... Learning the art of living, with solar-dynamic, bio-benign design." Ok, the title sounds like something a hippy would come up with. But get past the title... because the book is REALLY GREAT for the self-reliant who want to create their own independent house.

This book is for the person who wants to build an independent house in the boonies at low cost, and wants practical low cost solutions.

It explains how to hook on a solar garden to the house (or separately). How to use animals to provide heat... and CO2 to grow your plants to new heights.

She's from Massachusetts, so her winter solar home works through the cold winters. She's tested this system over more than 10 years.

She explains how to grow salad materials for profit. She shows you the numbers. But I'm not sure how applicable this is to all markets. She's in the upscale area of Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts.

She explains how to create grey water and black water waste systems that exceed common septic systems. An explanation on one of the many color pictures says: "The Solviva graywater garden: this area, with its thriving roses, dogwood, pines, spruce and grasses has recevied all graywater since my home was COMPLETED IN 1981. OVER THE PAST 17 YEARS these plants have successfully processed over 500 pounds of regular detergents, shampoos and cleaners, and 45 gallons of chlorine bleach."

On the toilets, she has invented a system that uses standard flush toilets that feed a composting system. It's all low tech and easy to build.

She uses grow tubes and growing beds in her greenhouses (attached or separate).

She keeps chickens, rabbits, sheep, and one donkey. All the systems feed each other. It's amazing how she relates the various things on her property.

The amount of goodies she gets out of her small farm(ette) are remarkable.

John D. ... Read more

Book Description

In response to increasing concerns about the degradation of natural resources and the sustainability of agriculture, many research programs have been established in natural resource management (NRM). However, although methods for evaluating the impacts of crop improvement technologies are well developed, there is a dearth of methods for evaluating the impacts of NRM interventions. This is partly due to the complexity of interactions among natural resources, spatial and temporal dimensions of impact, and the valuation of direct and indirect environmental costs and benefits. ... Read more

Book Description

Fatal Harvest takes an unprecedented look at our current ecologically destructive agricultural system and offers a compelling vision for an organic and environmentally safer way of producing the food we eat. The Fatal Harvest Reader brings together in an affordable paperback edition the essays included in Fatal Harvest, offering a concise overview of the failings of industrial agriculture and approaches to creating a more healthful and sustainable food system. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Very convincing
When I received this book recently as a gift I was completely overwhelmed. Overwhelmed by the considerateness of the donor. Overwhelmed by the high quality of the production. Overwhelmed by the large number of "big names" who had contributed. Overwhelmed by the quality and meaningfulness of the photographs. Overwhelmed by the quality of the message that it gets across. Overwhelmed by the ammunition it gives me in my own personal drive for safer, more reliable food. Overwhelmed by how helpful it will be to the waverers who have not yet plucked up the courage to break their links with the chemical establishment.

Let me start with the photos which are not only high quality but extremely helpful because side by side we are given a picture of crops grown under two systems which represent the two poles of producing our food. The text on the left page goes like this: "Industrial Eye: see what you are looking at: MELONS: More than half the melons sold in the U.S. are grown in California where industrial melon farms stretch for miles and miles ... Two of the most heavily used toxins in industrial melon production are ... Life is also difficult for the melon pickers ..." On the right page we have: "Agrarian Eye: See what you are looking at: MELONS: These melons are one crop among dozens at the Live Earth's 23-acre farm near Santa Cruz, CA. The melons are part of a diverse system of annual and perennial fruit and vegetable crops that rely on soil health to support the plant's natural ability to deter pests. But it's not done so easily - there are many challenges ... Coastal fog also poses potential fungal problems for melons, which Broz addresses by using fungal-resistant varieties of melons ... The melons are sold at local farmers' markets and through the farm's community supported agriculture (CSA) program, where families receive a weekly box of seasonal fruits and vegetables throughout the growing season."

Next the text. "Part One: Farming as if Nature Mattered: Breaking the Industrial Paradigm" is composed of seven articles such as "Global Monoculture: The Worldwide Destruction of Diversity". Then "Part Two: Corporate Lies: Busting the Myths of Industrial Agriculture" is composed of articles each addressing one of the seven myths such as "Myth Two: Industrial Food is Safe, Healthy and Nutritious". The book continues through to "Part Seven: Organic and Beyond: Revisioning Agriculture for the 21st Century" with nine more articles such as "The Ethics of Eating: Why Environmentalism Starts at the Breakfast Table."

In these 370 pages we have all the information we need to convince those sitting on the fence that we must reduce our dependence on industrial agriculture. When confronted with this volume it is difficult to imagine how all those involved in the industrial agricultural chain will be able to put up an effective argument. On the contrary, it should be convincing to the thinking service organization that this is where their future profits lie and they should climb on the band wagon helping rather than hindering. For the farmer who is wavering - and probably for good reasons as his livelihood is affected - he will find in this volume the encouragement he needs; others have forged the trail and he can follow in the knowledge that the forerunners have solved the major problems.

Bravo to all those concerned with the preparation of this volume. You have done mankind a great service. It is a long tunnel down which we are travelling, but I for one can now see the light in the distance. Because of your initiative the rest of us will travel our own path with more confidence and with greater speed. At last we can hope for some sanity in our food production. If we can get this volume into the hands of enough people - people who care - then we really can change the world. If Silent Spring was the book that woke the world to the evils of indiscriminate chemical use, then this volume will go down as the one that banged home the last nail in the coffin of industrial agriculture. ... Read more

Book Description

This is a prodigiously documented textbook of scientific information concerning every aspect of management 'where the cow and grass meet'. Voisin's 'rational grazing' method maximizes productivity in both grass and cattle operations. ... Read more