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The FAO estimated that five out of six farms in the world are operating less than two hectares of land, suggesting that small-holder farmers are producing over one-third of the global food. The cropping systems practiced by smallholder farmers play a vital role in agri-food production systems and help to reduce hunger, improve nutrition, and provide livelihoods to millions across the developing countries. The performance of these cropping systems has a direct impact on achieving the multiple Sustainable Development Goals (2030) of No Poverty (SDG 1), Zero Hunger (SDG 2), and Good Health and Wellbeing (SDG 3). System intensification is now widely recognized as an essential pathway to achieve food and nutrition security in developing countries. The numbers of smallholder farmers are rapidly increasing in both developing and underdeveloped countries, however, they are increasingly facing challenges to run profitably. Cropping system intensification (CSI) could be one of the ways to make such production systems more remunerative for these farmers.
This book brings together a team of renowned social scientists to ask not why climate change is happening, but how we might learn from its human dimensions to raise public and political will to fight against the climate crisis. Despite efforts for mitigation, global emission levels continue to increase annually and the world’s wealthiest nations, including all of the G20 countries, have failed to meet their Paris Climate Goals. In the absence of political will, many have called for individuals to act on climate change by mitigating their own carbon footprint through having fewer children, driving less, using LED lightbulbs, or by becoming vegetarians. While compelling, individual lifestyle...
As humans, we have remarkable capacity to collaborate, building global infrastructure that connects financial, political and social systems. However, having scaled our infrastructure globally, planetary boundaries have been exceeded in multiple directions. To protect Earth, we now face a task to transition both philosophically and technologically to lifestyles that seek to restore critical functions of natural ecosystems so that we, and other species on the planet, can survive. This is a mammoth challenge that will require changes in the jobs of hundreds of millions of people and a shift in ethic and legislation toward ecological protection and restoration. This book explores the motivations of human society, our global infrastructure and legislation. It highlights various systems and challenges that are contributing to ecosystem and species loss, and documents some of the solutions being offered. The interconnectivity of all these things is evident given the overlapping themes throughout the various sections, and the book serves to collectively highlight some of these major challenges and the locked-in nature of our systems so that we can address them.
Real world stories from the frontlines of climate change, resilience, and the future of food Practical insights and plenty of examples of how we can reshape our food system to one that is resilient and regenerative. — Mathis Wackernagel, Ph.D., founder and president, Global Footprint Network, co-author Ecological Footprint Inspiring and practical at a time when we desperately need both. — Dr. Anne Waple, founder and CEO, Earth's Next Chapter Brilliantly argues that it isn't some vague notion of "technology" that will show us the way forward but people working together and carefully stewarding the land. — Mark Bittman, author, Animal, Vegetable, Junk and How to Cook Everything CLIMATE C...
A revealing look at the history and legacy of the "War on Drugs" Fifty years after President Richard Nixon declared a "War on Drugs," the United States government has spent over a trillion dollars fighting a losing battle. In recent years, about 1.5 million people have been arrested annually on drug charges—most of them involving cannabis—and nearly 500,000 Americans are currently incarcerated for drug offenses. Today, as a response to the dire human and financial costs, Americans are fast losing their faith that a War on Drugs is fair, moral, or effective. In a rare multi-faceted overview of the underground drug market, featuring historical and ethnographic accounts of illegal drug prod...
Autonomous Nature investigates the history of nature as an active, often unruly force in tension with nature as a rational, logical order from ancient times to the Scientific Revolution of the seventeenth century. Along with subsequent advances in mechanics, hydrodynamics, thermodynamics, and electromagnetism, nature came to be perceived as an orderly, rational, physical world that could be engineered, controlled, and managed. Autonomous Nature focuses on the history of unpredictability, why it was a problem for the ancient world through the Scientific Revolution, and why it is a problem for today. The work is set in the context of vignettes about unpredictable events such as the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, the Bubonic Plague, the Lisbon Earthquake, and efforts to understand and predict the weather and natural disasters. This book is an ideal text for courses on the environment, environmental history, history of science, or the philosophy of science.
In this second edition of The Sociology of Food and Agriculture, students are provided with a substantially revised and updated introductory text to this emergent field. The book begins with the recent development of agriculture under capitalism and neo-liberal regimes, and the transformation of farming and peasant agriculture from a small-scale, family-run way of life to a globalized system. Topics such as the global hunger and obesity challenges, GM foods, and international trade and subsidies are assessed as part of the world food economy. The final section concentrates on themes of sustainability, food security, and food sovereignty. The book concludes on a positive note, examining alter...