Agriculture Science

Drawing on findings from leading health researchers as well as conversations with both chemical and organic farmers from coast to coast, Maria Rodale irrefutably outlines the unacceptably high cost of chemical farming on our health and our environment. She traces the genesis of chemical farming and the rise of the immense companies that profit from it, bringing to light the government's role in allowing such practices to flourish.

Plants grow in it. Animals live in it. Listen more to find out the facts on soil.

It's a perverse fact of modern life: There are more starving people in the world than ever before, while there are also more people who are overweight. To find out how we got to this point and what we can do about it, Raj Patel launched a comprehensive investigation into the global food network. It took him from the colossal supermarkets of California to India's wrecked paddy-fields and Africa's bankrupt coffee farms, while along the way he ate genetically engineered soy beans and dodged flying objects in the protestor-packed streets of South Korea.

Over the past several years, Hardwick, Vermont, a typical hardscrabble farming community of three thousand residents, has jump-started its economy and redefined its self-image through a local, self-sustaining food system unlike anything else in America.

When he first envisioned becoming a farmer, author Emmet Van Driesche never imagined his main crop would be Christmas trees, nor that such a tree farm could be more of a managed forest than the conventional grid of perfectly sheared trees. Carving Out a Living on the Land tells the story of how Van Driesche navigated changing life circumstances, took advantage of unexpected opportunities, and leveraged new and old skills to piece together an economically viable living, while at the same time respecting the land’s complex ecological relationships.

How do you recognize healthy soil? How much can your existing soil be improved? What are the best amendments to use for your soil? Let Building Soil answer your questions and be your guide on gardening from the ground up. Fertilizing, tilling, weed management, and irrigation all affect the quality of your soil. Using author Elizabeth Murphy’s detailed instructions, anyone can become a successful soil-based gardener, whether you want to start a garden from scratch or improve an existing garden.

Master sustainable living—achieve self-sufficiency without breaking the bank, even if you're starting from scratch! Do you dream of transforming your living space into a thriving homestead but feel overwhelmed by where to start? Imagine the joy of growing your own food, the satisfaction of harvesting rainwater, and the peace of mind from energy independence—all within your reach. The Practical Guide to Homesteading is your roadmap to achieving this transformation, bringing you affordable, step-by-step strategies for living sustainably off-grid, catered specifically to beginners.

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.

The perfect biography to "bite into" at the start of a new school year! Children are sure to be fascinated by the eccentric and legendary Johnny Appleseed, a man who is best known for bringing apple trees to the Midwest. Over John Chapman’s lifetime, he saw the country grow and start to spread westward. Traveling alone - in bare feet and sporting a pot on his head! - Johnny left his own special mark planting orchards that helped nourish new communities.

Dark Emu argues for a reconsideration of the 'hunter-gatherer' tag for pre-colonial Aboriginal Australians and attempts to rebut the colonial myths that have worked to justify dispossession. Accomplished author Bruce Pascoe provides compelling evidence from the diaries of early explorers that suggests that systems of food production and land management have been understated in modern retellings of Aboriginal history, and that a new look at Australia's past is required.

The family farm lies at the heart of our national identity, and yet its future is in peril. Rick Hammond grew up on a farm, and for 40 years he has raised cattle and crops on his wife's fifth-generation homestead in Nebraska, in hopes of passing it on to their four children. But as the handoff nears, their small family farm - and their entire way of life - are under siege.

Many of the men and women doing today's most consequential environmental work - restoring America's grasslands, wildlife, soil, rivers, wetlands, and oceans - would not call themselves environmentalists; they would be too uneasy with the connotations of that word. What drives them is their deep love of the land - the iconic terrain where explorers and cowboys, pioneers, and riverboat captains forged the American identity. They feel a moral responsibility to preserve this heritage and natural wealth.

Filled with catchall research, American Hemp examines what this new domestic crop can be used for, what makes it a superior product, and what made it illegal in the first place; the book also delves into the many health and medical benefits of the plant. Hobbs weighs in on how hemp can improve existing industries, from farming to energy to 3D printing, plus how it can make a serious impact on climate change by removing toxins from the soil and by decreasing our dependence on plastics and fossil fuels.

Why do we consume 35 percent more food when eating with one other person, and 75 percent more when dining with three? How do we explain the fact that people who like strong coffee drink more of it under bright lighting? And why does green ketchup just not work? The answer is gastrophysics, the new area of sensory science pioneered by Oxford professor Charles Spence.

Learning Native Wisdom explains why achieving a sustainable culture is more important than any other challenge we face today. Although there are many measures of a society's progress, Holthaus warns that only a shift away from our current culture of short-term abundance, founded on a belief in infinite economic growth, will represent true advancement. In societies that value the longevity of people, culture, and the environment, subsistence and spirituality soon become closely allied with sustainability.

Marine algae are the supreme eco-engineers of life: they oxygenate the waters, create habitat for countless other organisms, and form the base of a food chain that keeps our planet unique in the universe as we know it. In this audiobook Josie Iselin explores both the artistic and the biological presence of 16 seaweeds and kelps that live in the thin region where the Pacific Ocean converges with the North American continent - a place of incomparable richness.

Embark on a transformative journey to a self-sufficient rural lifestyle! Are you interested in changing your life? Have you heard people talking about the joys of homesteading and wondered if it’s the life for you? Do you want to learn how to plan and budget for your homestead? People have been homesteading since the 1800s, when land was freely given to people, provided they paid a small fee to register the land in their name, live there, and improve the land. Now, it’s a common way of life, a life many people actively choose to live to change their lives for the better.

This is an audiobook about regenerative agriculture gone wild. This audiobook of short stories and essays is a wondrous meditation on sunrises and wildness, on wildflowers and walks. It is also an audiobook about you, about me, and about the ecosystem regeneration possible through learning to see the wild gifts of relationship. It presents a choice to stop; to nurture awareness; to learn a language of relationship instead of dominance - of community not colonization.

Sarah Langford had left her country roots behind to live and work in the city as a barrister. But when she found herself moving to the countryside, back to an agricultural life she had left behind, she saw farmers dealing with very different problems to those faced by her grandfather. Beleaguered with the challenges of climate change, Brexit and falling incomes, they faced accusations of ecological mismanagement from a hostile media and public. But, as Sarah looked to them to teach her about the land, she also found a new generation of farmers on a path of regenerative change.

Fields, Factories, and Workshops (1898) was one of Kropotkin's three most important texts (along with The Conquest of Bread and Mutual Aid - also available on Ukemi Audiobooks). Its subtitle - Industry Combined with Agriculture and Brain Work with Manual Work - indicates that although he starts from a Marxist standpoint, concerned with the exploitation of the wage-labourer and the inequality suffered by the majority of the social classes, he was equally concerned with the 'human needs of the individual’.