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Saving the Earth
Sustainable Agriculture
Sustainable agricultural practices are increasingly needed to feed the hungry billions as Earth’s population grows. “Sustainable” refers to a farm’s ability to continue to produce crops without damaging or depleting the ecosystem. Ecosystem damage may occur from erosion, the overuse of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, groundwater depletion, reduction of soil nutrients and micro-organisms, the loss of pollinating agents (bees and butterflies), lowered resistance to disease through extensive reliance on a single plant (Great Irish Famine 1845-1849), or the accumulation of salt in the soil due to inadequate drainage while using irrigation.
Continue reading "Sustainable Agriculture" essay »
The recommended books reviewed below point the way to increasing agricultural productivity without harming the environment. Sustainable farming is a central element in a systemic approach to saving the Earth.
Recommended Books on Sustainable Agriculture
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Agrarian Dreams: The Paradox of Organic Farming in California
Julie Guthman
Many believe organic farming to be the solution to sustainable agriculture. Refuting popular portrayals of organic agriculture as a small-scale family farm endeavor, Guthman explains how organic farming in California has replicated the industrial agriculture it set out to oppose. A fascinating overview of this modern trend.
2004, University of California Press
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Agroecology: The Science of Sustainable Agriculture
Miguel A. Altieri
Agroecology pays attention to the farming ecosystem and involves managing all natural resources, not only the "target" crop. The book includes a large section on the design of alternative ecologically based agricultural systems and technologies.
1995, Westview Press
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Agroecology: The Science of Sustainable Agriculture
Miguel A. Altieri
Agroecology pays attention to the farming ecosystem and involves managing all natural resources, not only the "target" crop. The book includes a large section on the design of alternative ecologically based agricultural systems and technologies.
1995, Westview Press
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Ecoagriculture: Strategies To Feed The World And Save Wild Biodiversity
by Future Harvest, Jeffrey A. McNeely, Sara J. Scherr
The authors show how agricultural landscapes can be designed more creatively to take the needs of human populations into account while also protecting and enhancing biodiversity. It features a wealth of real-world case studies that demonstrate the applicability of the ideas discussed.
2002, Island Press
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Farming with the Wild
Dan Imhoff
Modern industrial agriculture plays a major role in the decline in biodiversity in the United States. Dan Imhoff promotes a new vision for sustainable agriculture beginning with farms that gracefully meld within landscapes, pulsing with a wide range of native species. Farming with the Wild offers vivid profiles of more than 30 innovative farms and ranches in the U.S. An on-the-ground picture of a new agrarian movement.
2003, Sierra Club Books
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Feeding The Ten Billion
L.T. Evans
This fascinating book looks at the intimate links between population growth and agricultural innovation over the past 10,000 years, illustrating how the evolution of agriculture has both shaped and been shaped by the course of world population growth. This historical context serves to illuminate our current world food situation and to aid understanding of possible future paths to food security for the planet.
1998, Cambridge University Press
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The Greening of the Revolution: Cuba's Experiment With Organic Agriculture
Peter Rosset, Global Exchange, Medea Benjamin
Cuba's social and economic systems have been in crisis since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The country has adopted a Low Input, Sustainable Acriculture style of food production in order to cope with drastically reduced inputs of chemicals, fertilizer, fuel, and capital. A comprehensive report from a twenty-member delegation.
1995, Ocean Press
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Organic Farming: An International History
W. Lockeretz
Beginning as a small protest to the industrialization of agriculture in the 1920's, organic farming has become a significant force in agricultural policy, marketing, and research. Illustrated with case histories of important organic institutions in various countries, this is the first comprehensive historical overview of organic farming.
2007, Cabi Publishing
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Out of the Earth: Civilization and the Life of the Soil
Daniel Hillel
Professor Hillel explores ancient cultures to demonstrate that destructive farming practices and deforestation have been occuring with regularity for thousands of years. This book is passionate in its defense of the earth and the need for wise stewardship of its resources.
1992, University of California Press
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Outgrowing The Earth
Lester R. Brown
The author dramatically details how human demands are outstripping the earth's capacities - and what we need to do about it. Future security, Brown says, depends on raising water productivity, stabilizing climate by moving beyond fossil fuels, and slowing population growth.
2005, W. W. Norton
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Smallholders, Householders: Farm Families and the Ecology of Intensive, Sustainable Agriculture
Robert Netting
Dr. Netting illustrates the technology and knowledge of intensive farm practices as exemplified in Nigerian permanent subsistence cultivation, a Swiss alpine dairy farming system, and wet-rice farming in Asia. In each of these systems, the farm family household is seen as a repository of ecological knowledge. The author views these examples of sustainable agriculture and suggests that the West can profit by studying them.
1993, Stanford University Press
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Stolen Harvest
Vandana Shiva
Shiva contrasts corporate methods of food production that prevail in the United States with the small farmer economy that predominates in the Third World. She shows how native farming practices frequently produce higher yields and criticizes commercial fishing and aquaculture practices that result in environmental destruction and reduced catches. A passionate and articulate wake-up call to the public.
2001, Zed Books
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Sustainable Agriculture
John Mason
The technological revolution in farming practices has allowed us to clear and cultivate more land, grow plants and animals faster, and kill a greater variety of pests than ever before. Unfortunately, these efficiencies have created problems such as soil structural decline, erosion, salinity, soil acidification, loss of fertility, nutrients in waterways, and a buildup of chemical residues in the soil. Mason points out the necessity of a sustainable approach which addresses these problems before it is too late. He explores farming practices such as permaculture, biodynamics, organic farming, agroforestry, conservation tillage, and integrated hydroculture.
2003, CSIRO Publishing
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Sustainable Agriculture and Resistance
Fernando Funes, et.al, eds.
This is the story of Cuba's remarkable recovery from a food crisis brought on by the collapse of trade relations with the former socialist bloc and the tightening of the US embargo. Unable to import food, fertilizer, and machines, Cuba turned toward self reliance. Sustainable agriculture, organic farming, urban gardens, smaller farms, animal traction, and biological pest control are part of the successful paradigm shift underway in the Cuban countryside.
2002, Food First
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The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture
Wendell Berry
Poet/farmer Wendell Berry sees the environmental crisis as a crisis of character, agriculture, and culture. Because Americans are divorced from the land, they mistreat it; because they are divorced from each other, they mistreat those around them. Berry argues for the creation of more meaningful work, the protection of the environment, and the necessity of meaningful community.
1996, Sierra Club Books
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