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The New Horse-Powered Farm is the first book of its kind, offering wisdom and techniques for using horse power on the small farm or homestead. It sets the stage for incorporating draft power on the farm by presenting necessary information for experienced and novice teamsters alike, including getting started with workhorses; the merits of different draft breeds; various training systems for the horse and teamster; haying with horses, seeding crops, and raising small grains; in-depth coverage of tools and systems; and managing a woodlot, farm economics, education, agritourism, and more. It's a must-have resource for any farmer, homesteader, or teamster seeking to work with draft power in a closed-loop farming system.
Throughout the United States, people are increasingly concerned about where their food comes from, how it is produced, and how its production affects individuals and their communities. The answers to these questions reveal a complex web of interactions. While large, distant farms and multinational companies dominate at national and global levels, innovative programs including farmers' markets, farm-to-school initiatives, and agritourism are forging stronger connections between people and food at local and regional levels. At all levels of the food system, energy use, climate change, food safety, and the maintenance of farmland for the future are critical considerations. The need to understan...
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.
Globalization has impacted many aspects of life, and the food chain is no exception. Approximately one-quarter of America's food supply is imported, and while food production and manufacturing companies financially benefit from sourcing food from other countries, regulating these food sources becomes increasingly difficult. How does food regulation and inspection differ between countries? What can be done to ensure food imported from other countries is safe for consumption, and how can we make sure people involved in the food production process around the world are treated ethically? Readers will explore the many considerations affecting the global food chain.
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Presented in nontechnical terms, this book offers a unique and powerful conceptual framework for analysis of energy technologies (standard and alternative) in terms of their respective dollar costs, environmental costs, and national security costs. Energy technologies examined include coal, nuclear, oil, natural gas, solar, wind, geothermal, hydropower, biomass and biogas, energy conservation and efficiency, ocean power, hydrogen, electric power and transmission, and transportation. This three-point framework allows examination of issues and problems associated with implementation of U.S. energy policies in the context of major social goals (such as growth and equity), with treatment of conflicts and trade-offs between energy development and other social values (such as health and safety, cultural, historical, and aesthetic values). These are the key political issues for policy makers formulating national energy policy and decisions makers implementing it.
An influential founding member of the American organic agriculture movement and a long-time organic farmer, Grace Gershuny gives us one of the most comprehensive and deeply personal accounts of adventures in that movement ever written. A principal author of the USDA's first proposed National Organic rule, Gershuny left the National Organic Program staff just before the final rule was published. The complicated story of that movement for nationwide organic regulations, which consumed Gershuny's life for five years, is interwoven here with her own personal timeline before, during, and after the arduous federal process. This memoir explores how the organic revolution became rooted well before t...
Contrary to popular belief, a good living can be made on an organic farm. What's required is farming smarter, not harder. Wiswall shares advice on how to make vegetable production more efficient, better manage employees and finances, and turn a profit.
Forget Climate Change – Today the world is on fire and we, the modern-day Neros, are busy fiddling. We are too caught up in frivolity to see the existential challenges staring us in the face. For example, climate change is real and it’s coming around faster than you think, as proven by the catastrophic events all over the world. But it has become a cliche before it has even been understood. While we are busy merrymaking, another silent global crisis is creeping up on us. It is called soil degradation. In the past 40 years alone, 30 percent of the planet’s arable land has become unproductive due to erosion. At current estimates, nearly all of the remaining 11 billion acres of cropland and grazing land suffer from some degree of erosion. “We are overlooking soil as the foundation of all life on Earth,” says Andres Arnalds, assistant director of the Icelandic Soil Conservation Service. Essentially, all life depends upon the soil. Someone has rightly put it, “Despite all our achievements we owe our existence to a six-inch layer of topsoil and the fact that it rains.”
"The New Bread Basket tells the story of how a radical band of grain pioneers--farmers, millers, bakers, brewers, and maltsters--are reinventing community grain systems and reintroducing grains as a viable food crop. Today's commodity grain industry has let many Americans to avoid eating gluten and carbohydrates altogether. Yet our long history with grains suggests that changes in farming and processing could be the real reason wheat has become suspect in popular nutrition. In The New Bread Basket, Amy Halloran introduces readers to a wide range of important projects developing outside of the traditional wheat belt that are empowering communities to turn away from factory bread and beer and revitalize local grain production in a way that benefits people, local businesses, and the environment."--Back cover.