Alternative Agriculture A History

Author : Joan Thirsk
Publisher : OUP Oxford
ISBN 13 : 0191586811
Total Pages : 382 pages
Book Rating : 4.11/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Alternative Agriculture: A History written by Joan Thirsk and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 1997-10-09 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: People like to believe in a past golden age of traditional English countryside, before large farms, machinery, and the destruction of hedgerows changed the landscape forever. However, that countryside may have looked both more and less familiar than we imagine. Take todays startling yellow fields of rapeseed, seemingly more suited to the landscape of Van Gogh than Constable. They were, in fact, thoroughly familiar to fieldworkers in seventeenth-century England. At the same time, some features that would have gone unremarked in the past now seem like oddities. In the fifteenth century, rabbit warrens were specially guarded to rear rabbits as a luxury food for rich mens tables; whilst houses had moats not only to defend them but to provide a source of fresh fish. In the 1500s we find Catherine of Aragon introducing the concept of a fresh salad to the court of Henry VIII; and in the 1600s, artichoke gardens became a fashion of the gentry in their hope of producing more male heirs. The common tomato, suspected of being poisonous in 1837, was transformed into a household vegetable by the end of the nineteenth century, thanks to cheaper glass-making methods and the resulting increase in glasshouses. In addition to these images of past lives, Joan Thirsk reveals how the forces which drive our current interest in alternative forms of agriculture a glut of meat and cereal crops, changing dietary habits, the needs of medicine have striking parallels with earlier periods in our history. She warns us that todays decisions should not be made in a historical vacuum: we can find solutions to our current problems in the experience of people in the past.

Author : Gerard Beaur
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9782503586748
Total Pages : 349 pages
Book Rating : 4.40/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Alternative Agriculture in Europe (sixteenth-Twentieth Centuries) written by Gerard Beaur and published by . This book was released on 2020-06-15 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The treatment of long-term agricultural transformation remains a lively topic for historians. Much debate arose when agricultural development patterns were discovered that did without a dominant, production-oriented cereal crop, even when it was accompanied by livestock farming. Joan Thirsk hoped to conclude this debate by putting forward the hypothesis that such "alternative agriculture" was the farmers' way of responding to the difficulties caused by periods of low agricultural prices. This theory stirred up controversy and arguments both for and against.00The contributions to this volume take this hypothesis seriously and attempt to assess its validity. Examining a large number of "alternative agricultures" over the long term, from the fifteenth to the twentieth century, they discuss the issues encountered in tracing the links between the spread of alternative crops, such as fruits and vegetables, flowers, and industrial crops, and the general economic environment, across a vast swathe of territory stretching from Flanders to Spain and from France, through Italy and Switzerland, as far as Russia.

Author : Joan Thirsk
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 164 pages
Book Rating : 4.30/5 ( download)

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Download or read book People, Landscape and Alternative Agriculture written by Joan Thirsk and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Joan Thirsk is unquestionably the leading English agricultural historian of her generation. In a writing career extending over half a century, she has made an individual and influential contribution to rural history and our understanding of the economic history of early modern England. As she enters her ninth decade (and her sixth decade of writing and publication), her capacity to lead her collegues into new areas of research is undiminished. This volume arises from a conference held in September 2002 to celebrate Joan's eightieth birthday. It addresses a number of characteristic Thirsk preoccupations - a concern for people and their lives; with landscape, region and peculiarity; and a fascination with alternative agriculture. The contributors are drawn from amongst Joan's former students and friends.

Author : Marcel Mazoyer
Publisher : NYU Press
ISBN 13 : 1583671218
Total Pages : 528 pages
Book Rating : 4.14/5 ( download)

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Download or read book A History of World Agriculture written by Marcel Mazoyer and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2006-06 with total page 528 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Only once we understand the long history of human efforts to draw sustenance from the land can we grasp the nature of the crisis that faces humankind today, as hundreds of millions of people are faced with famine or flight from the land. From Neolithic times through the earliest civilizations of the ancient Near East, in savannahs, river valleys and the terraces created by the Incas in the Andean mountains, an increasing range of agricultural techniques have developed in response to very different conditions. These developments are recounted in this book, with detailed attention to the ways in which plants, animals, soil, climate, and society have interacted. Mazoyer and Roudart’s A History of World Agriculture is a path-breaking and panoramic work, beginning with the emergence of agriculture after thousands of years in which human societies had depended on hunting and gathering, showing how agricultural techniques developed in the different regions of the world, and how this extraordinary wealth of knowledge, tradition and natural variety is endangered today by global capitialism, as it forces the unequal agrarian heritages of the world to conform to the norms of profit. During the twentieth century, mechanization, motorization and specialization have brought to a halt the pattern of cultural and environmental responses that characterized the global history of agriculture until then. Today a small number of corporations have the capacity to impose the farming methods on the planet that they find most profitable. Mazoyer and Roudart propose an alternative global strategy that can safegaurd the economies of the poor countries, reinvigorate the global economy, and create a livable future for mankind.

Author : Randal S. Beeman
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 240 pages
Book Rating : 4.68/5 ( download)

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Download or read book A Green and Permanent Land written by Randal S. Beeman and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Once patronized primarily by the counterculture and the health food establishment, the organic food industry today is a multi-billion-dollar business driven by ever-growing consumer demand for safe food and greater public awareness of ecological issues. Assumed by many to be a recent phenomenon, that industry owes much to agricultural innovations that go back to the Dust Bowl era. This book explores the roots and branches of alternative agricultural ideas in twentieth-century America, showing how ecological thought has challenged and changed agricultural theory, practice, and policy from the 1930s to the present. It introduces us to the people and institutions who forged alternatives to industrialized agriculture through a deep concern for the enduring fertility of the soil, a passionate commitment to human health, and a strong advocacy of economic justice for farmers. Randal Beeman and James Pritchard show that agricultural issues were central to the rise of the environmental movement in the United States. As family farms failed during the Depression, a new kind of agriculture was championed based on the holistic approach taught by the emerging science of ecology. Ecology influenced the "permanent agriculture" movement that advocated such radical concepts as long-term land use planning, comprehensive soil conservation, and organic farming. Then in the 1970s, "sustainable agriculture" combined many of these ideas with new concerns about misguided technology and an over-consumptive culture to preach a more sensible approach to farming. In chronicling the overlooked history of alternative agriculture, A Green and Permanent Land records the significant contributions of individuals like Rex Tugwell, Hugh Bennett, Louis Bromfield, Edward Faulkner, Russell and Kate Lord, Scott and Helen Nearing, Robert Rodale, Wes Jackson, and groups like Friends of the Land and the Practical Farmers of Iowa. And by demonstrating how agriculture also remains central to the public interest—especially in the face of climatic crises, genetically altered crops, and questionable uses of pesticides—this book puts these issues in historical perspective and offers readers considerable food for thought.

Author : Eric Holt-Giménez
Publisher : Food First Books
ISBN 13 : 9780935028270
Total Pages : 260 pages
Book Rating : 4.77/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Campesino a Campesino written by Eric Holt-Giménez and published by Food First Books. This book was released on 2006 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Campesino a Campesino tells the inspiring story of a true grassroots movement: poor peasant farmers teaching one another how to protect their environment while still earning a living. The first book in English about the farmer-led sustainable agriculture movement in Latin America, Campesino a Campesino includes lots of first-person stories and commentary from the farmer-teachers, mixing personal accounts with detailed analysis of the political, socioeconomic, and ecological factors that galvanized the movement. Campesino farmer leading a farmer to farmer training session in Mexico by Eric Holt-GimenezMany years ago, author Eric Holt-Gim�nez was a volunteer trying to teach sustainable agriculture techniques in the dusty highlands of central Mexico, with little success. Near the end of his tenure, he invited a group of visiting Guatemalan farmers to teach a course in his village. What he saw was like nothing he had known. The Guatemalans used parables, stories, and humor to present agricultural improvement to their Mexican compadres as a logical outcome of clear thinking and compassion; love of farming, of family, of nature, and of community. Rather than try to convince the Mexicans of their innovations, they insisted they experiment new things on a small scale first to see how well they worked. And they saw themselves as students, respecting the Mexicans' deep, lifelong knowledge of their own particular land and climate. All they asked in return was that the Mexicans turn around and share their new knowledge with others--which they did. CAC campo3_photo by Food FirstThis exchange was typical of a grassroots movement called Campesino a Campesino, or Farmer to Farmer, which has grown up in southern Mexico and war-torn Central America over the last three decades. In the book Campesino a Campesino, Holt-Gim�nez writes the first history of the movement, describing the social, political, economic, and environmental circumstances that shape it. The voices and stories of dozens of farmers in the movement are captured, bringing to vivid life this hopeful story of peasant farmers helping one another to farm sustainably, protecting their land, their environment, and their families' future.

Author : Stephanie Anderson
Publisher : University of Nebraska Press
ISBN 13 : 1496211944
Total Pages : 313 pages
Book Rating : 4.41/5 ( download)

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Download or read book One Size Fits None written by Stephanie Anderson and published by University of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2019-01-01 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Sustainable” has long been the rallying cry of agricultural progressives; given that much of our nation’s farm and ranch land is already degraded, however, sustainable agriculture often means maintaining a less-than-ideal status quo. Industrial agriculture has also co-opted the term for marketing purposes without implementing better practices. Stephanie Anderson argues that in order to provide nutrient-rich food and fight climate change, we need to move beyond sustainable to regenerative agriculture, a practice that is highly tailored to local environments and renews resources. In One Size Fits None Anderson follows diverse farmers across the United States: a South Dakota bison rancher who provides an alternative to the industrial feedlot; an organic vegetable farmer in Florida who harvests microgreens; a New Mexico super-small farmer who revitalizes communities; and a North Dakota midsize farmer who combines livestock and grain farming to convert expensive farmland back to native prairie. The use of these nontraditional agricultural techniques show how varied operations can give back to the earth rather than degrade it. This book will resonate with anyone concerned about the future of food in America, providing guidance for creating a better, regenerative agricultural future. Download a discussion guide (PDF).

Author : Patricia Allen
Publisher : Penn State Press
ISBN 13 : 027102268X
Total Pages : 272 pages
Book Rating : 4.80/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Together at the Table written by Patricia Allen and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2015-08-26 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Everywhere you look people are more aware of what they eat and where their food comes from. In a cafeteria in Los Angeles, children make their lunchtime food choices at fresh-fruit and salad bars stocked with local foods. In a community garden in New York, low-income residents are producing organically grown fruits and vegetables for their own use and to sell at market. In Madison, Wisconsin, shoppers select their food from a bounty of choices at a vibrant farmers’ market. Together at the Table is about people throughout the United States who are building successful alternatives to the contemporary agrifood system and their prospects for the future. At the heart of these efforts are the movements for sustainable agriculture and community food security. Both movements seek to reconstruct the agrifood system—the food production chain, from the growing of crops to food production and distribution—to become more ecologically sound, economically viable, and socially just. Allen describes the ways in which people working in these movements view the world and how they see their place in challenging and reshaping the agrifood system. She also shows how ideas and practices of sustainable agriculture and community food security have already woven their way into the dominant agrifood institutions. Allen explores the possibilities this process may hold for improving social and environmental justice in the American agrifood system. Together at the Table is an important reminder that much work still remains to be done. Now that the ideas and priorities of alternative food movements have taken hold, it is time for the next—even more challenging—step. Alternative agrifood movements must acknowledge and address the deeper structural and cultural patterns that constrain the long-term resolution of social and environmental problems in the agrifood system.

Author : Irene Reti
Publisher : University Library, Uc Santa Cruz
ISBN 13 : 9780972334365
Total Pages : 326 pages
Book Rating : 4.6X/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Cultivating a Movement written by Irene Reti and published by University Library, Uc Santa Cruz. This book was released on 2012 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A synergistic web of visionary farmers, activists, educators, and researchers is transforming the food system in Central California and beyond. This sampling of narratives is drawn from the first extensive oral history of organic and sustainable farming. It documents a multifaceted and interdependent community of change-makers who speak for themselves, offering a window into the dynamic history of a movement.

Author : Miguel A. Altieri
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781853390005
Total Pages : 227 pages
Book Rating : 4.03/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Agroecology written by Miguel A. Altieri and published by . This book was released on 1987 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: (Westview special studies in agriculture science and policy).