Showing titles in Sustainable Agriculture

More than a practical guide, Start Your Farm is a hopeful call to action for anyone who aspires to grow wholesome, environmentally sustainable food for a living. Take it from Forrest Pritchard and Ellen Polishuk: Making this dream a reality is not for the faint of heart, but it's well within reach - and there's no greater satisfaction under the sun.

When Rudolf Steiner gave these lectures 80 years ago, industrial farming was on the rise and organic methods were being replaced in the name of science, efficiency, and technology. With the widespread alarm over the quality of food in recent years, and the growth of the organic movement and its mainstream acceptance, perceptions are changing. The qualitative aspect of food is once again on the agenda, and in this context Rudolf Steiner's only course of lectures on agriculture is critical to the current debate.

As industry and technology proliferate in modern society, sustainability has jumped to the forefront of contemporary political and environmental discussions. The balance between progress and the Earth's ability to provide for its inhabitants grows increasingly precarious as we attempt to achieve sustainable development.

Are you ready to embrace a self-sufficient, eco-friendly lifestyle, even if you're starting from scratch? “The Essentials for Homesteading” is your gateway to success. Whether in a cozy apartment or a sprawling countryside, this practical guide will help you thrive without breaking the bank.

It’s time to think big about small farms. Award-winning author and “green leader” (Grist) Ben Hartman shares practical how-to tips, personal stories, and surprising examples of cutting-edge farmers and innovators around the world to show us how.

The organic grower's guide to planting, propagation, culture, and ecology. Trees are our allies in healing the world. Partnering with trees allows us to build soil, enhance biodiversity, increase wildlife populations, grow food and medicine, and pull carbon out of the atmosphere, sequestering it in the soil. Author Akiva Silver is an enthusiastic tree grower with years of experience running his own commercial nursery. In this audiobook, he clearly explains the most important concepts necessary for success with perennial woody plants.

In Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply, Vandana Shiva explores the devastating effects of commercial agriculture and genetic engineering on the food we eat, the farmers who grow it, and the soil that sustains it. This prescient critique and call to action covers some of the most pressing topics of this ongoing dialogue, from the destruction of local food cultures and the privatization of plant life, to unsustainable industrial fish farming and safety concerns about corporately engineered foods.

There is a major disconnect between what we wear and our knowledge of its impact on land, air, water, labor, and human health. Even those who value access to safe, local, nutritious food have largely overlooked the production of fiber, dyes, and the chemistry that forms the backbone of modern textile production. While humans are 100 percent reliant on their second skin, it’s common to think little about the biological and human cultural context from which our clothing derives.

Dive into a transformative journey with not just one, but TWO enlightening manuscripts in one powerful audiobook, designed for those yearning to embrace the serenity of country living, the art of homesteading, beekeeping, raising livestock, and mastering natural parasite management.

In The Nature of Nature, world-renowned environmental thinker and activist Vandana Shiva argues that food is the currency of life, a thread woven throughout the web of all life, indivisible from Earth and its natural systems. When this interdependence is ruptured—as it is now—the conditions for the “metabolic disorder” of climate change and countless other ecological imbalances come into being.

For decades, it has been nearly universal dogma among environmentalists and health advocates that cattle and beef are public enemy number one. But is the matter really so clear? Hardly, argues environmental lawyer turned rancher Nicolette Hahn Niman in her new book, Defending Beef. The public has long been led to believe that livestock, especially cattle, erode soils, pollute air and water, damage riparian areas, and decimate wildlife populations. In Defending Beef, Hahn Niman argues that cattle are not inherently bad for either the Earth or our own nutritional health.

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 by progressive farms around the world....

Vandana Shiva has been described in many ways: the “Gandhi of Grain,” “a rock star” in the battle against GMOs, and “the most powerful voice” for people of the developing world. In Terra Viva, Dr. Shiva shares her most memorable campaigns, alongside some of the world’s most celebrated activists and environmentalists, all working toward a livable planet and healthier democracies.

Twenty years ago, Joel Salatin wrote You Can Farm, which has launched thousands of farm entrepreneurs around the world. With another 20 years of experience under his belt, bringing him to the half-century mark as a full-time farmer, he decided to build on that foundation with a sequel, a graduate-level curriculum. Everyone who reads (or listens to), and enjoys that previous work, will benefit from this additional information.

In his comprehensive audiobook, Justin Christofleau meticulously explains the inner workings of his electroculture system. His step-by-step guide made it accessible to farmers, gardeners, agronomists, students, and anyone passionate about food, health, and the environment.

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.

Building Your Permaculture Property offers a revolutionary holistic method to overcome overwhelm in the complex process of resilient land design. It distills the authors' decades of experience as engineers, farmers, educators, and consultants into a five-step process complete with principles, practices, templates, and workflow tools.

With global population numbers projected to increase by two billion by 2050, a veritable food crisis is on the horizon. In this audiobook we examine some of the complex factors involved in the coming “food crisis” and the innovative ideas and technologies designed to increase food production sustainably. We also examine current industry methods to increase production and the controversies surrounding them, including not only hot-button issues like genetically modified (or GM) and processed foods but also food safety and the physical effects of the modern diet.

It’s all but certain that the next 50 years will bring enormous, not to say cataclysmic, disruptions to our present way of life. World oil reserves will be exhausted within that time frame, as will the lithium that powers today’s most sophisticated batteries, suggesting that transportation is equally imperiled. Farming for the Long Haul is about building a viable small-farm economy that can withstand the economic, political, and climatic shock waves that the 21st century portends.

More than a decade after Michael Pollan's game-changing The Omnivore's Dilemma transformed the conversation about what we eat, a combination of global diet trends and corporate interests have put American agriculture into a state of 'quiet emergency', from dangerous drought in California - which grows more than 50 percent of the fruits and vegetables we eat - to catastrophic topsoil loss in the 'breadbasket' heartland of the United States.