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Books : Science : Agricultural Sciences : Sustainable Agriculture
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Alcohol Can Be a Gas! is the only comprehensive book ever written on alcohol fuel production and use for home and farm. Until now, it has been very difficult for farmers, contractors, alternative energy aficionados, those concerned about Peak Oil, and small-scale entrepreneurs to obtain good, accurate information on producing alcohol, or on converting vehicles to run on alcohol fuel. And with all the conflicting news stories about ethanol, the public finds it difficult to sort fact from fiction. This text, which has been reviewed by scientists around the world, is the definitive reference work on alcohol fuel.Alcohol Can Be A Gas! contains 640 8-1/2 by 11 pages, with 514 charts, photos, and illustrations to reinforce the information-dense text. The book is geared for the nonscientific reader, but its 473 endnotes provide the technical foundation behind the accessible prose. A 700-word glossary and a 6300-entry index extend the book's usefulness.
This book is the distilled essence of the most pertinent information ever assembled in one place on alcohol fuel, the technology that can help us finally become producers of almost limitless energy, instead of extractors of finite resources. How we produce our energy from here on out will determine how we govern ourselves and how we relate to nature and the environment; it will also create a sea change in where wealth concentrates. It will determine if the future is ruled by a small number of armed dictatorships backed by military and industrial interests (a cabal author David Blume likes to refer to as MegaOilron or the Oilygarchy), or if energy, and therefore power, is held by a diffusion of democratic entities, based on their ingenuity and ability to gather a portion of their daily solar income.
As Blume writes in the Introduction to Alcohol Can Be a Gas!: "Various prospective publishers argued that putting all of this material into one large volume might scare off readers who just want a recipe book of how to make alcohol. They said, 'All this history and politics is fascinating, but aren't you afraid that including it in your how-to book would scare away some buyers?' 'Put it in a separate publication,' their marketing experts said. But in the final analysis, I decided that this book should be a complete tool kit to revolutionize our transportation energy system, combining a broad, sweeping vision with intricate detail.
"I spent four years working on this book with a small team of researchers. I traveled all over the United States in search of the most up-to-date information. In frozen South Dakota, I talked to Orrie Swayze and his farmer and VFW buddies who are taking on the oil companies, and to alcohol combustion engineer and alcohol aviation expert, Jim Behnken. I went to Decatur, Illinois, to see the largest alcohol plant in the U.S., Archer Daniels Midland's 200-million-gallon-per-year plant. My travels also took me to Brazil to document the world's largest alcohol fuel program.
"It took over 25 years to finally get this book to you. It represents the confidence of almost 30 people who collectively loaned more than $250,000 to see this project through. It's the most comprehensive book ever written about alcohol fuel. Its production has been a massive effort that has depended on the cooperation of hundreds of people who contributed both their knowledge and, more importantly, their experiences."
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Microfarms—or small acreage farms—are gaining popularity across the country for their astoundingly high yields and great tasting produce, as well as their profitability. This handbook reveals the secrets of successful micro eco-farming and explains what eco-farmers need to know to start their own small agribusiness. Questions such as What can be grown? How do farmers reach their markets? and What sustainable production methods can be used? are answered in detail and supported be hundreds of real-life examples. A variety of unusual uses for crops are also provided, including producing organic spa products, building an urban greenhouse, creating a heritage rose farm, or cultivating a connoisseur apple orchard. Ecologists, amateur gardeners, farmers, and those interested in sustainable living will enjoy this in-depth look at the spiritually and financially rewarding aspects of this new field.
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This popular and widely praised book describes everything you need to know about selecting and raising small livestock.
Long the primary reference for anyone who keeps animals as a sustainable food source, this latest edition includes up-to-date information on breeds and breeding, feed, disease prevention, housing, and management. The book also includes a chapter on growing feed; appendices covering disease identification and treatment, manure, tanning, incubators, and injections; and a catalog of supplemental resources. Country Journal calls it "a handbook in the true sense of the word. You can pick it up and turn to any section to find quickly the information needed." 55 black & white line illustrations, index.
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With Soil Not Oil, Vandana Shiva connects the dots between industrial agriculture and climate change. Shiva shows that a world beyond dependence on fossil fuels and globalization is both possible and necessary.
Condemning industrial agriculture as a recipe for ecological and economic disaster, Shiva's champion is the small, independent farm: their greater productivity, their greater potential for social justice as they put more resources into the hands of the poor, and the biodiversity that is inherent to the traditional farming practiced in small-scale agriculture. What we need most in a time of changing climates and millions hungry, she argues, is sustainable, biologically diverse farms that are more resistant to disease, drought, and flood. In her trademark style, she draws solutions to our world's most pressing problems on the head of a pin: "The solution to climate change," she observes, "and the solution to poverty are the same."
Using Shiva's organization Navdanya-praised by Barbara Kingsolver as "a small, green Eden framed against the startling blue backdrop of the Himalayas"-as a model, Soil Not Oil lays out principles for feeding the planet that are socially just and environmentally sound. Shiva then expands her analysis to broader issues of globalization and climate change, arguing that a healthy environment and a just world go hand in hand. Unwavering and truly visionary, Soil Not Oil proposes a solution based on self-organization, sustainability, and community rather than corporate power and profits.
A world-renowned environmental leader and thinker, Vandana Shiva is the author of many books, including Earth Democracy, Water Wars, and Staying Alive. She is the editor of Manifestos on the Future of Food and Seed.
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This book is about one woman's vision and commitment to learning to live sustainably and in harmony with life on Earth. Since 1976 Anna Edey has made one astonishing discovery after another, developing methods of sustainable living under the name Solviva Solar-Dynamic, Bio-Benign Design. The results of her experiments and methods have again and again exceeded highest hopes and expectations. Solviva describes the exciting trials and triumphs of her journey and offers convincing proof that we can, with today's technology and knowledge, live in ways that reduce pollution and depletion of resources by 80 percent or more, and at the same time reduce the cost of living and improve the quality of life in urban and rural locations. Solviva contains 155 color illustrations and detailed instructions and recommendations to help others along their own journeys toward living sustainably.
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The miracle of the Green Revolution was made possible by cheap fossil fuels to supply crops with artificial fertilizer, pesticides, and irrigation. Estimates of the net energy balance of agriculture in the United States show that ten calories of hydrocarbon energy are required to produce one calorie of food. Such an imbalance cannot continue in a world of diminishing hydrocarbon resources.
Eating Fossil Fuels examines the interlinked crises of energy and agriculture and highlights some startling findings:
The worldwide expansion of agriculture has appropriated fully 40 percent of the photosynthetic capability of this planet.
The Green Revolution provided abundant food sources for many, resulting in a population explosion well in excess of the planet's carrying capacity.
Studies suggest that without fossil fuel-based agriculture, the United States could only sustain about two-thirds of its present population. For the planet as a whole, the sustainable number is estimated to be about two billion.
Concluding that the effect of energy depletion will be disastrous without a transition to a sustainable, re-localized agriculture, the book draws on the experiences of North Korea and Cuba to demonstrate stories of failure and success in the transition to non-hydrocarbon-based agriculture. It urges strong grassroots activism for sustainable, localized agriculture and a natural shrinking of the world's population.
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Going organic may be a clear way of getting back to basics—and getting away from the havoc chemicals can wreak on our health and our environment—but the basics themselves may not be so clear. How to begin? What kind of fertilizer and feed are allowed? Is there natural pest management? What does certification entail? And is this the way to go?
This book covers the basics and then some. Whether you’re thinking of starting an organic farm or making the transition to organics, whether you’re growing crops or raising animals, you’ll find everything you need to know in these pages—from getting started to developing a marketing strategy. A list of resources also points the way to other books, websites, and organizations focusing on every aspect of organic farming, including state standards and more information.
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To an increasing number of American families the CSA (community supported agriculture) is the answer to the globalization of our food supply. The premise is simple: create a partnership between local farmers and nearby consumers, who become members or subscribers in support of the farm. In exchange for paying in advance—at the beginning of the growing season, when the farm needs financing—CSA members receive the freshest, healthiest produce throughout the season and keep money, jobs, and farms in their own community.
In this thoroughly revised and expanded edition of a Chelsea Green classic, authors Henderson and Van En provide new insight into making CSA not only a viable economic model, but the right choice for food lovers and farmers alike. Thinking and buying local is quickly moving from a novel idea to a mainstream activity. The groundbreaking first edition helped spark a movement and, with this revised edition, Sharing the Harvest is poised to lead the way toward a revitalized agriculture.
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Maynard Murray was a medical doctor who researched the crucial importance of minerals - especially trace elements - to plants and animals. Beginning in 1938 and continuing through the 1950s, Dr. Murray used sea solids - mineral salts remaining after water is evaporated from ocean water - as fertilizer on a variety of vegetables, fruits and grains. His extensive experiments demonstrated repeatedly and conclusively that plants fertilized with sea solids and animals fed sea-solid-fertilized feeds grow stronger and more resistant to disease.Sea Energy Agriculture recounts Murray's experiments and presents his astounding conclusions. The work of this eco-pioneer was largely ignored during his lifetime, and his book became a lost classic - out-of-print for more than 25 years. Now this rare volume is once again available, with a new foreward and afterword by the founder of Acres U.S.A., Charles Walters.
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In All Flesh Is Grass: The Pleasures and Promises of Pasture Farming, Gene Logsdon explains that well-managed pastures are nutritious and palatable—virtual salads for livestock. Leafy pastures also hold the soil, increase biodiversity, and create lovely landscapes. Grass farming may be the solution for a stressed agricultural system based on an industrial model and propped up by federal subsidies. The pasture farming that Gene Logsdon practices can also produce grains, fruits, herbs, mushrooms, and salad greens for human consumption. The book explains historically effective practices and new techniques that have blossomed in recent years for the care and sustenance of horses, cattle, sheep, hogs, and poultry on pasture. Logsdon's warm profiles of successful grass farmers offer inspiration and ideas. His narrative is enriched by his experience as a "contrary farmer" on his own artisan-scale farm.The culmination of a lifetime's experience, this book is vital for owners of small acreages, home food producers, horse enthusiasts, and sustainable commercial farmers.
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While the American agricultural and food systems follow a decades-old path of industrialization and globalization, a counter trend has appeared toward localizing some agricultural and food production. Thomas A. Lyson, a scholar-practitioner in the field of community-based food systems, calls this rebirth of locally based agriculture and food production civic agriculture because these activities are tightly linked to a community's social and economic development. Civic agriculture embraces innovative ways to produce, process, and distribute food, and it represents a sustainable alternative to the socially, economically, and environmentally destructive practices associated with conventional large-scale agriculture. Farmers' markets, community gardens, and community-supported agriculture are all forms of civic agriculture.
Lyson describes how, in the course of a hundred years, a small-scale, diversified system of farming became an industrialized system of production and also how this industrialized system has gone global. He argues that farming in the United States was modernized by employing the same techniques and strategies that transformed the manufacturing sector from a system of craft production to one of mass production. Viewing agriculture as just another industrial sector led to transformations in both the production and the processing of food. As small farmers and food processors were forced to expand, merge with larger operations, or go out of business, they became increasingly disconnected from the surrounding communities. Lyson enumerates the shortcomings of the current agriculture and food systems as they relate to social, economic, and environmental sustainability. He then introduces the concept of community problem solving and offers empirical evidence and concrete examples to show that a re-localization of the food production system is underway.
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A comprehensive guide-book for those interested in raising poultry on pasture. Numerous articles from a diversity of authors, each highlighting their "lessons learned" and "best practices." Organized in an easy-to-use format, topics range from brooding to processing, laying hens to broilers and turkeys. This book offers everything from the basics to the finest details shared by successful pastured poultry producers. Included are discussions of various shelter designs and comparisons of "day-range" vs "closed shelter" systems. Chapters on Marketing and Equipment help producers make decisions in these areas. Profiles of numerous successful producers and suppliers of specialized equipment from around the U.S. are included. Fully indexed.
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When Rudolf Steiner gave these lectures eighty 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 food quality in recent years, and with the growth of the organic movement and its mainstream acceptance, perceptions are changing. The qualitative aspect of food is on the agenda again, and in this context Steiner’s only course of lectures on agriculture is critical to the current debate.With these talks, Steiner created and launched "biodynamic" farming—a form of agriculture that has come to be regarded as the best organically produced food. However, the agriculture Steiner speaks of here is much more than organic—it involves working with the cosmos, with the earth, and with spiritual beings. To facilitate this, Steiner prescribes specific "preparations" for the soil, as well as other distinct methods born from his profound understanding of the material and spiritual worlds. He presents a comprehensive picture of the complex dynamic relationships at work in nature and gives basic indications of the practical measures needed to bring them into full play.
These lectures are reprinted here in the "classic" translation made by Rudolf Steiner's English interpreter, George Adams. This edition also features a preface by Steiner's colleague the medical doctor Ehrenfried Pfeiffer, as well as eight color plates.
This is the course that began the biodynamic movement. This is the essential work for anyone wanting to understand and use Steiner's methods of food production.
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In this comprehensive guide for all breeders and keepers of sheep, Pat Coleby draws on decades of experience in natural animal husbandry to provide essential information for organic and sustainable farmers. A longtime commercial livestock farmer who takes a natural approach to husbandry, Coleby covers breeds of sheep, wool, meat and milk production, feeding requirements, poisonous plants, minerals and vitamins, herbal, homeopathic and natural remedies, and more. Originally published in Australia, this edition has been expanded significantly in the areas of breeding for finer wool and meat, land management, sheep management, and treatment of health problems. Coleby's step-by-step explanations of how to best benefit from a naturalistic, holistic approach make this book an invaluable resource for everyone with sheep.
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Food and agriculture are in the news daily. Stories in the media highlight issues of abundance, deprivation, pleasure, risk, health, community, and identity. Remaking the North American Food System examines the resurgence of interest in rebuilding the links between agricultural production and food consumption as a way to overcome some of the negative implications of industrial and globalizing trends in the food and agricultural system. Written by a diverse group of scholars and practitioners, the chapters in this volume describe the many efforts throughout North America to craft and sustain alternative food systems that can improve social, economic, environmental, and health outcomes. With examples from Puerto Rico to Oregon to Quebec, this volume offers a broad North American perspective attuned to trends toward globalization at the level of markets and governance and shows how globalization affects the specific localities. The contributors make the case that food can no longer be taken for granted or viewed in isolation. Rather, food should be considered in its connection to community vitality, cultural survival, economic development, social justice, environmental quality, ecological integrity, and human health.
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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
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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 valueMuch 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.
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In the final decade of the twentieth century, the American West was at war. Battle lines had hardened, with environmentalists squarely on one side of the fence, and ranchers on the other. By the mid-1990s, debates over the region’s damaged land had devolved into political wrangling, bitter lawsuits, and even death-threats. Conventional wisdom told us those who wanted to work the land and those who wanted to protect it had fundamentally different—and irreconcilable—values. In Revolution on the Range, Courtney White challenges that truism, heralding stories from a new American West where cattle and conservation go hand in hand. He argues that ranchers and environmentalists have more in common than they’ve typically admitted: a love of wildlife, a deep respect for nature, and a strong allergic reaction to suburbanization. The real conflict has not been over ethics, but approaches. Today, a new brand of ranching is bridging the divide by mimicking nature while still turning a profit. Westerners are literally reinventing the ranch by confronting their own assumptions about nature, profitability, and each other. Ranchers are learning that new ideas can actually help preserve traditional lifestyles. Environmentalists are learning that protected landscapes aren’t always healthier than working ones. White, a self-proclaimed middle-class city boy, has learned there’s more to ranching than grit and cowboy boots. The author’s own transformation from conflict-oriented environmentalist to radical centrist mirrors the change sweeping the region. As ranchers and environmentalists find common cause, they’re discovering new ways to live on—and preserve—the land they both love. Revolution on the Range is the story of that journey, and a heartening vision of the new American West.
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(20071128)Human dependence on technology has increased exponentially over the past several centuries, and so too has the notion that we can fix environmental problems with scientific applications. The Virtues of Ignorance: Complexity, Sustainability, and the Limits of Knowledge proposes an alternative to this hubristic, shortsighted, and dangerous worldview. The contributors argue that uncritical faith in scientific knowledge has created many of the problems now threatening the planet and that our wholesale reliance on scientific progress is both untenable and myopic.
Bill Vitek, Wes Jackson, and a diverse group of thinkers, including Wendell Berry, Anna Peterson, and Robert Root-Bernstein, offer profound arguments for the advantages of an ignorance-based worldview. Their essays explore this philosophy from numerous perspectives, including its origins, its essence, and how its implementation can preserve vital natural resources for posterity. All conclude that we must simply accept the proposition that our ignorance far exceeds our knowledge and always will.
Rejecting the belief that science and technology are benignly at the service of society, the authors argue that recognizing ignorance might be the only path to reliable knowledge. They also uncover an interesting paradox: knowledge and insight accumulate fastest in the minds of those who hold an ignorance-based worldview, for by examining the alternatives to a technology-based culture, they expand their imaginations.
Demonstrating that knowledge-based worldviews are more dangerous than useful, The Virtues of Ignorance looks closely at the relationship between the land and the future generations who will depend on it. The authors argue that we can never improve upon nature but that we can, by putting this new perspective to work in our professional and personal lives, live sustainably on Earth.
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With the recent republication of Dr. Maynard Murray's Sea Energy Agriculture, readers rediscovered the forgotten legacy of an eco-ag pioneer. Murray's idea -- that ocean water contains a concentrated, perfect balance of trace minerals in bioavailable form -- seems almost as revolutionary today as when he introduced it three decades ago. In this fascinating book, Charles Walters examines Murray's career and the amazing successes that growers have experienced with his methods, as well as further developments in this technology by creative experimenters. Using hard data obtained in the field, Walters demonstrates that sea-solids fertilizers produce stress-resistant plants and food with naturally extended shelf life and vastly increased nurtient levels. Both an amazing narrative and a practical guide for improving soil and crop health, Fertility from the Ocean Deep is a must-read for everyone interested in the cutting edge of sustainable agriculture.