Rewilding Agricultural Landscapes

Rewilding Agricultural Landscapes

Author: H. Scott Butterfield

Publisher: Island Press

Published: 2021-04-08

Total Pages: 290

ISBN-13: 1642831263

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As the world population grows, so does the demand for food, putting unprecedented pressure on agricultural lands. In many desert dryland regions, however, intensive cultivation is causing their productivity to decline precipitously. "Rewilding" the least productive of these landscapes offers a sensible way to reverse the damage, recover natural diversity, and ensure long-term sustainability of remaining farms and the communities they support. This accessibly written, groundbreaking contributed volume is the first to examine in detail what it would take to retire eligible farmland and restore functioning natural ecosystems. The lessons in Rewilding Agricultural Landscapes will be useful to conservation leaders, policymakers, groundwater agencies, and water managers looking for inspiration and practical advice for solving the complicated issues of agricultural sustainability and water management.


Farming While Black

Farming While Black

Author: Leah Penniman

Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing

Published: 2018

Total Pages: 369

ISBN-13: 1603587616

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Farming While Black is the first comprehensive "how to" guide for aspiring African-heritage growers to reclaim their dignity as agriculturists and for all farmers to understand the distinct, technical contributions of African-heritage people to sustainable agriculture. At Soul Fire Farm, author Leah Penniman co-created the Black and Latino Farmers Immersion (BLFI) program as a container for new farmers to share growing skills in a culturally relevant and supportive environment led by people of color. Farming While Black organizes and expands upon the curriculum of the BLFI to provide readers with a concise guide to all aspects of small-scale farming, from business planning to preserving the harvest. Throughout the chapters Penniman uplifts the wisdom of the African diasporic farmers and activists whose work informs the techniques described--from whole farm planning, soil fertility, seed selection, and agroecology, to using whole foods in culturally appropriate recipes, sharing stories of ancestors, and tools for healing from the trauma associated with slavery and economic exploitation on the land. Woven throughout the book is the story of Soul Fire Farm, a national leader in the food justice movement.--AMAZON.


U. S. Farmland Ownership, Tenure, and Transfer

U. S. Farmland Ownership, Tenure, and Transfer

Author: Daniel Bigelow

Publisher:

Published: 2016-09-28

Total Pages: 53

ISBN-13: 9781457863486

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Farmland tenure shapes many farm decisions, including those related to production, conservation, and succession planning. The relatively advanced age of many farmers raises questions abut land ownership, especially how land will be transferred to the next generation of agricultural landowners and operators. This study provides a descriptive baseline analysis of land ownership and then focuses on more detailed aspects of land tenure, including non-operator landlords, rental agreements, the acquisition and transfer of land, and how decisionmaking is shared by landlords and their tenants. The report is designed to support broad discussions related to agricultural land ownership and to provide a starting point for more detailed statistical analysis. Figures and tables. This is a print on demand report.


Dispossession

Dispossession

Author: Pete Daniel

Publisher: UNC Press Books

Published: 2013-03-29

Total Pages: 351

ISBN-13: 1469602024

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Between 1940 and 1974, the number of African American farmers fell from 681,790 to just 45,594--a drop of 93 percent. In his hard-hitting book, historian Pete Daniel analyzes this decline and chronicles black farmers' fierce struggles to remain on the land in the face of discrimination by bureaucrats in the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He exposes the shameful fact that at the very moment civil rights laws promised to end discrimination, hundreds of thousands of black farmers lost their hold on the land as they were denied loans, information, and access to the programs essential to survival in a capital-intensive farm structure. More than a matter of neglect of these farmers and their rights, this "passive nullification" consisted of a blizzard of bureaucratic obfuscation, blatant acts of discrimination and cronyism, violence, and intimidation. Dispossession recovers a lost chapter of the black experience in the American South, presenting a counternarrative to the conventional story of the progress achieved by the civil rights movement.


Shifting Cultivation and Environmental Change

Shifting Cultivation and Environmental Change

Author: Malcolm F. Cairns

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2015-01-09

Total Pages: 1405

ISBN-13: 1317750187

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Shifting cultivation is one of the oldest forms of subsistence agriculture and is still practised by millions of poor people in the tropics. Typically it involves clearing land (often forest) for the growing of crops for a few years, and then moving on to new sites, leaving the earlier ground fallow to regain its soil fertility. This book brings together the best of science and farmer experimentation, vividly illustrating the enormous diversity of shifting cultivation systems as well as the power of human ingenuity. Some critics have tended to disparage shifting cultivation (sometimes called 'swidden cultivation' or 'slash-and-burn agriculture') as unsustainable due to its supposed role in deforestation and land degradation. However, the book shows that such indigenous practices, as they have evolved over time, can be highly adaptive to land and ecology. In contrast, 'scientific' agricultural solutions imposed from outside can be far more damaging to the environment and local communities. The book focuses on successful agricultural strategies of upland farmers, particularly in south and south-east Asia, and presents over 50 contributions by scholars from around the world and from various disciplines, including agricultural economics, ecology and anthropology. It is a sequel to the much praised "Voices from the Forest: Integrating Indigenous Knowledge into Sustainable Upland Farming" (RFF Press, 2007), but all chapters are completely new and there is a greater emphasis on the contemporary challenges of climate change and biodiversity conservation.


Population and Land Use in Developing Countries

Population and Land Use in Developing Countries

Author: National Research Council

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 1993-02-01

Total Pages: 174

ISBN-13: 0309048389

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This valuable book summarizes recent research by experts from both the natural and social sciences on the effects of population growth on land use. It is a useful introduction to a field in which little quantitative research has been conducted and in which there is a great deal of public controversy. The book includes case studies of African, Asian, and Latin American countries that demonstrate the varied effects of population growth on land use. Several general chapters address the following timely questions: What is meant by land use change? Why are ecological research and population studies so different? What are the implications for sustainable growth in agricultural production? Although much work remains to be done in quantifying the causal connections between demographic and land use changes, this book provides important insights into those connections, and it should stimulate more work in this area.


The Land and Its People

The Land and Its People

Author: Rowland Edmund Prothero

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2011-01-13

Total Pages: 276

ISBN-13: 1108025307

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This survey of British agriculture is an important source for social and economic historians, especially of the First World War.


Practical handbook for agricultural land cover mapping in the Lao People's Democratic Republic

Practical handbook for agricultural land cover mapping in the Lao People's Democratic Republic

Author: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

Publisher: Food & Agriculture Org.

Published: 2020-09-01

Total Pages: 81

ISBN-13: 9251330093

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This handbook presents the detailed steps for national agricultural land cover mapping, conducted with limited resources and budget from design to final validation and production. It covers the technical aspects of 1) selection and preprocess of satellite imagery (both optical and radar), 2) definition of a land cover legend using international standards, 3) the integration with other existing information as well as the analysis of such database in order to assign a thematic classification, 4) the interpretation, 5) the accuracy assessment and 6) the final packaging and publication of results. The handbook focuses on mapping agricultural land, in a complex landscape, such as the one found in Lao PDR, where atmospheric conditions, topographic effects and management makes the classification challenging. The handbook also presents practical examples of the team, software and skill-set required to develop a national land cover dataset. The objective of the document is to provide a working manual to other national teams willing to develop a land cover mapping programme.


Agri-Culture

Agri-Culture

Author: Jules N. Pretty

Publisher: Earthscan

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 281

ISBN-13: 1849770425

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'Refreshingly fluent narrative, brimming full of stories and metaphors' Tim O'Riordan, University of East Anglia, UK 'A great balance between storytelling and analysis which points to the critical need for gaining control over resources' Jacqueline Ashby, CIAT, Colombia 'Full of supporting evidence and clear arguments' Norman Uphoff, Cornell University, US 'A wonderful book, put together with such vision and passion' Mark Ritchie, Institute of Agriculture and Trade Policy, US 'A superb volume. This is a valuable monograph that all policy-makers, scholars and farmers must read to understand their roles and responsibilities' Vo-Tong Xuan, Angiang University, Vietnam 'Beautifully written. The implications of the book's ideas are deep and extensive' Julia Guivant, University of Florianopolis, Brazil Something is wrong with our agricultural and food systems. Despite great progress in increasing productivity in recent decades, hundreds of millions of people remain hungry and malnourished, and further millions suffer for eating too much food or the wrong sort. Agri-Culture envisages the expansion of a new form of food production and consumption founded on more ecological principles and in harmony with the cultures, knowledges and collective capacities of the producers themselves. It draws on many stories of successful agricultural transformation in developing and industrialized countries, but with a warning that true prosperity will depend on the radical reform of the institutions and policies that control global food futures, and fundamental changes in the way we think. The time has come for the next agricultural revolution.


Agricultural Land Redistribution

Agricultural Land Redistribution

Author: Hans P. Binswanger-Mkhize

Publisher: World Bank Publications

Published: 2009-01-01

Total Pages: 494

ISBN-13: 0821379623

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Despite 250 years of land reform all over the World, important land inequalities remain, especially in Latin America and Southern Africa.While in these countries, there is near consensus on the need for redistribution, much controversy persists around how to redistribute land peacefully and legally, often blocking progress on implementation.This book focuses on the "how" of land redistribution in order to forge greater consensus among land reform practitioners and enable them to make better choices on the mechanisms of land reform. Reviews and case studies describe and analyze the al.