Author :
Publisher :
Page : 56 pages
File Size : 48,2 MB
Release : 1958
Category : Cost and standard of living
ISBN :
This report brings together some interpretations of data on farm family spending from surveys made by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Author : Beth Hoffman
Publisher : Island Press
Page : 274 pages
File Size : 49,75 MB
Release : 2021-10-05
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 164283159X
"Eloquent and detailed...It's hard to have hope, but the organized observations and plans of Hoffman and people like her give me some. Read her book -- and listen." -- Jane Smiley, The Washington Post In her late 40s, Beth Hoffman decided to upend her comfortable life as a professor and journalist to move to her husband's family ranch in Iowa--all for the dream of becoming a farmer. There was just one problem: money. Half of America's two million farms made less than $300 in 2019, and many struggle just to stay afloat. Bet the Farm chronicles this struggle through Beth's eyes. She must contend with her father-in-law, who is reluctant to hand over control of the land. Growing oats is good for the environment but ends up being very bad for the wallet. And finding somewhere, in the midst of COVID-19, to slaughter grass finished beef is a nightmare. If Beth can't make it, how can farmers who confront racism, lack access to land, or don't have other jobs to fall back on hack it? Bet the Farm is a first-hand account of the perils of farming today and a personal exploration of more just and sustainable ways of producing food.
Author : Michael Mayerfeld Bell
Publisher : Penn State Press
Page : 314 pages
File Size : 15,37 MB
Release : 2010-11-01
Category : Technology & Engineering
ISBN : 9780271046327
Farming for Us All gives us the opportunity to explore the possibilities for social, environmental, and economic change that practical, dialogic agriculture presents.
Author :
Publisher :
Page : 112 pages
File Size : 30,7 MB
Release : 1998
Category : Agriculture
ISBN :
Author : Daniel Imhoff
Publisher :
Page : 258 pages
File Size : 49,84 MB
Release : 2019
Category : Environmental law
ISBN : 9781642830309
"Daniel Imhoffs recently-published The Farm Bill: A Citizens Guide [is] a welcome and much-needed source for translating farm bill legalese ... [it is] a thorough and navigable history of the farm bill ... [that] hands readers the tools to take action." Foodprint "Dan Imhoff does an extraordinary job of explaining an impenetrable bill with such clarity that we can't ignore the facts: that our current Farm Bill profoundly damages our organic farms, our environment, and our health. Just as extraordinary are the practical solutions Imhoff proposes for fixing the bill--humane policies that would support regenerative agriculture and our local farmers instead of tearing them down." Alice Waters, Executive Chef, Founder, and Owner, Chez Panisse "Cuts to the core of dozens of issues Congress wrestles with every four years, and gives citizens sage advice for making their voices heard in a debate too often dominated by Big Ag, Big Food, and Big Money." Ken Cook, President and Cofounder, Environmental Working Group "A must-read for those who truly care about how they feed themselves and their families." Michel Nischan, Founder and CEO, Wholesome Wave "Readers will gain deep insight into the big barriers to Farm Bill reform, but also into the ripening opportunities for major change. Imhoff makes a strong case for why we should care and what it will take to transform policy." Ferd Hoefner, Strategic Senior Advisor, National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition "Dan Imhoff is the go-to person if you want to know both details and the full sweep of the Farm Bill." Wes Jackson, President Emeritus, The Land Institute.
Author : Inderjit Singh
Publisher :
Page : 360 pages
File Size : 12,32 MB
Release : 1986
Category : Agricultural industries
ISBN :
This book presents the basic model of an agricultural household that underlies most of the case studies undertaken so far. The model assumes that households are price-takers and is therefore recursive. The decisions modeled include those affecting production and the demand for inputs and those affecting consumption and the supply of labor. Comparative results on selected elasticities are presented for a number of economies. The empirical significance of the approach is demonstrated in a comparison of models that treat production and consumption decisions separately and those in which the decisionmaking process is recursive. The book summarizes the implications of agricultural pricing policy for the welfare of farm households, marketed surplus, the demand for nonagricultural goods and services, the rural labor market, budget revenues, and foreign exchange earnings. In addition, it is shown that the basic model can be extended in order to explore the effects of government policy on crop composition, nutritional status, health, saving, and investment and to provide a more comprehensive analysis of the effects on budget revenues and foreign exchange earnings. Methodological topics, primarily the data requirements of the basic model and its extensions, along with aggregation, market interaction, uncertainty, and market imperfections are discussed. The most important methodological issues - the question of the recursive property of these models - is also discussed.
Author : Mike Madison
Publisher : Chelsea Green Publishing
Page : 178 pages
File Size : 28,54 MB
Release : 2018-02-09
Category : Technology & Engineering
ISBN : 1603587950
"Instead of taking us through his work, season by season, crop by crop--the narrative approach--Madison explores his farm and its methods analytically, from many overlapping angles. The result is profoundly interesting." -- The New York Review of Books As the average age of America’s farmers continues to rise, we face serious questions about what farming will look like in the near future, and who will be growing our food. Many younger people are interested in going into agriculture, especially organic farming, but cannot find affordable land, or lack the conceptual framework and practical information they need to succeed in a job that can be both difficult and deeply fulfilling. In Fruitful Labor, Mike Madison meticulously describes the ecology of his own small family farm in the Sacramento Valley of California. He covers issues of crop ecology such as soil fertility, irrigation needs, and species interactions, as well as the broader agroecological issues of the social, economic, regulatory, and technological environments in which the farm operates. The final section includes an extensive analysis of sustainability on every level. Pithy, readable, and highly relevant, this book covers both the ecology and the economy of a truly sustainable agriculture. Although Madison’s farm is unique, the broad lessons he has gleaned from his more than three decades as an organic farmer will resonate strongly with the new generation of farmers who work the land, wherever they might live. *This book is part of Chelsea Green Publishing’s NEW FARMER LIBRARY series, where we collect innovative ideas, hard-earned wisdom, and practical advice from pioneers of the ecological farming movement—for the next generation. The series is a collection of proven techniques and philosophies from experienced voices committed to deep organic, small-scale, regenerative farming. Each book in the series offers the new farmer essential tips, inspiration, and first-hand knowledge of what it takes to grow food close to the land.
Author : John Fraser Hart
Publisher : University of Virginia Press
Page : 320 pages
File Size : 44,15 MB
Release : 2003
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9780813922294
Few Americans know much about contemporary farming, which has evolved dramatically over the past few decades. In The Changing Scale of American Agriculture, the award-winning geographer and landscape historian John Fraser Hart describes the transformation of farming from the mid-twentieth century, when small family farms were still viable, to the present, when a farm must sell at least $250,000 of farm products each year to provide an acceptable level of living for a family. The increased scale of agriculture has outmoded the Jeffersonian ideal of small, self-sufficient farms. In the past farmers kept a variety of livestock and grew several crops, but modern family farms have become highly specialized in producing a single type of livestock or one or two crops. As farms have become larger and more specialized, their number has declined. Hart contends that modern family farms need to become integrated into tightly orchestrated food-supply chains in order to thrive, and these complex new organizations of large-scale production require managerial skills of the highest order. According to Hart, this trend is not only inevitable, but it is beneficial, because it produces the food American consumers want to buy at prices they can afford. Although Hart provides the statistics and clear analysis such a study requires, his book focuses on interviews with farmers: those who have shifted from mixed crop-and-livestock farming to cash-grain farming in the Midwest agricultural heartland; beef, dairy, chicken, egg, turkey, and hog producers around the periphery of the heartland; and specialty crop producers on the East and West Coasts. These invaluable case studies bring the reader into direct personal contact with the entrepreneurs who are changing American agriculture. Hart believes that modern large-scale farmers have been criticized unfairly, and The Changing Scale of American Agriculture, the result of decades of research, is his attempt to tell their side of the story.
Author : James Daniel Cowhig
Publisher :
Page : 40 pages
File Size : 42,83 MB
Release : 1960
Category : Rural health
ISBN :
Author : Charles Thompson, Jr.
Publisher : Chelsea Green Publishing
Page : 242 pages
File Size : 16,47 MB
Release : 2019-10-03
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 1603589139
Booklist Editors’ Choice “Best Books of 2019” An intimate portrait of the joys and hardships of rural life, as one man searches for community, equality, and tradition in Appalachia Charles D. Thompson, Jr. was born in southwestern Virginia into an extended family of small farmers. Yet as he came of age he witnessed the demise of every farm in his family. Over the course of his own life of farming, rural education, organizing, and activism, the stories of his home place have been his constant inspiration, helping him identify with the losses of others and to fight against injustices. In Going Over Home, Thompson shares revelations and reflections, from cattle auctions with his grandfather to community gardens in the coal camps of eastern Kentucky, racial disparities of white and Black landownership in the South to recent work with migrant farm workers from Latin America. In this heartfelt first-person narrative, Thompson unpacks our country’s agricultural myths and addresses the history of racism and wealth inequality and how they have come to bear on our nation’s rural places and their people.
