Author : Ronald Jager
Publisher : UPNE
Page : 268 pages
File Size : 46,10 MB
Release : 2004
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9781584650270
A penetrating look at the condition of family farming--yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
Author :
Publisher : U of Nebraska Press
Page : 376 pages
File Size : 26,98 MB
Release : 2008-06-01
Category : Technology & Engineering
ISBN : 9780803217485
Americans decry the decline of family farming but stand by helplessly as industrial agribusiness takes over. The prevailing sentiment is that family farms should survive for important social, ethical, and economic reasons. But will they? This timely book exposes the biases in American farm policies that irrationally encourage expansion, biases evident in federal commodity programs, income tax provisions, and subsidized credit services. Family Farming also exposes internal conflicts, particularly the conflict between the private interests of individual farmers and the public interest in family farming as a whole. It challenges the assumption that bigger is better, critiques the technological basis of modern agriculture, and calls for farming practices that are ethical, economical, and ecologically sound. The alternative policies discussed in this book could yet save the family farm, and the ways and means of saving it are argued here with special urgency. ø This Bison Books edition includes a new introduction by the author providing a more national perspective, underscoring the repetitive cycles of American agriculture over the decade, and assessing the major policy issues that have dominated agriculture in recent years.
Author : Ingolf Vogeler
Publisher : CRC Press
Page : 362 pages
File Size : 44,32 MB
Release : 2019-06-25
Category : Science
ISBN : 1000303705
The ideal of the family farm has been used to justify a myriad of federal farm legislation. Land grants, the distribution of irrigation water, land-grant college research and services, farm programs, and tax laws all have been affected. Yet, asserts the author, federal legislation and practices have had an institutional bias toward large-scale farms and agribusiness and have hastened the demise of family farms. Dr. Vogeler examines the struggle between land interests in the private and public sectors and finds that the myth of the family farm has been used to obscure the dominance of agribusiness and that the corporate penetration of agriculture has in turn contributed to the plight of migrant workers, the decline of small towns, and the economic difficulties of independent farmers. Dr. Vogeler also identifies the major shortcomings of agribusiness and federal land-related laws and programs; examines the regional impact of agribusiness and federal farm programs on rural areas; and considers the role of racial minorities and women in the development of agrarian capitalism. In conclusion, he offers a structural analysis that provides the means for progressive social change and states that the achievement of economic equality in rural America and the dismantling of the corporate control of agriculture can be realized through farmer-labor alliances.
Author : Richard A. Levins
Publisher :
Page : 664 pages
File Size : 25,1 MB
Release : 2000
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN :
Then, for forty long years, he held to his principles while traditional agriculture faded into what he once called "family farms in form but not in spirit."".
Author : Ted Genoways
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
Page : 288 pages
File Size : 40,10 MB
Release : 2017-09-19
Category : Technology & Engineering
ISBN : 0393292584
Winner of the Stubbendieck Great Plains Distinguished Book Prize 2019 selection for the One Book One Nebraska and All Iowa state reading programs "Genoways gives the reader a kitchen-table view of the vagaries, complexities, and frustrations of modern farming…Insightful and empathetic." —Milwaukee Journal Sentinel 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 forty 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 family farm—and their entire way of life—are under siege on many fronts, from shifting trade policies, to encroaching pipelines, to climate change. Following the Hammonds from harvest to harvest, Ted Genoways explores the rapidly changing world of small, traditional farming operations. He creates a vivid, nuanced portrait of a radical new landscape and one family’s fight to preserve their legacy and the life they love.
Author : Boguslaw Galeski
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 332 pages
File Size : 24,85 MB
Release : 2020-09-23
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 0429712618
Much has happened since agricultural economists and rural sociologists met at the University of Chicago in 1946 to discuss family farming. The problems and issues related to the structure of agriculture have been intensified by current economic considerations, which promote the growth of larger-scale commercial farming operations and edge out many smaller farms owned, operated, and worked by families. In this book, contributors from eleven nations in Europe and North America provide a comparison of farm structure under different economic and political systems, including Poland as an example of a non-market economy. In addition to providing information on how local, state, and international policies have affected the agricultural enterprise, they look at the role of farmers' organizations in policy formulation and take note of changes in farm patterns and policies that have had an impact on farm production, off-farm work, and the welfare of farm families and rural communities.
Author : Ryan Stoa
Publisher : MIT Press
Page : 253 pages
File Size : 33,27 MB
Release : 2018-11-13
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 0262038862
How the future of post-legalization marijuana farming can be sustainable, local, and artisanal. What will the marijuana industry look like as legalization spreads? Will corporations sweep in and create Big Marijuana, flooding the market with mass-produced weed? Or will marijuana agriculture stay true to its roots in family farming, and reflect a sustainable, local, and artisanal ethic? In Craft Weed, Ryan Stoa argues that the future of the marijuana industry should be powered by small farms—that its model should be more craft beer than Anheuser-Busch. To make his case for craft weed, Stoa interviews veteran and novice marijuana growers, politicians, activists, and investors. He provides a history of marijuana farming and its post-hippie resurgence in the United States. He reports on the amazing adaptability of the cannabis plant and its genetic gifts, the legalization movement, regulatory efforts, the tradeoffs of indoor versus outdoor farms, and the environmental impacts of marijuana agriculture. To protect and promote small farmers and their communities, Stoa proposes a Marijuana Appellation system, modeled after the wine industry, which would provide a certified designation of origin to local crops. A sustainable, local, and artisanal farming model is not an inevitable future for the marijuana industry, but Craft Weed makes clear that marijuana legalization has the potential to revitalize rural communities and the American family farm. As the era of marijuana prohibition comes to an end, now is the time to think about what kind of marijuana industry and marijuana agriculture we want. Craft Weed will help us plan for a future that is almost here.
Author : Beth Hoffman
Publisher : Island Press
Page : 274 pages
File Size : 28,9 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 : Caitlin Henderson
Publisher : WaterBrook
Page : 225 pages
File Size : 15,70 MB
Release : 2022-02-01
Category : Religion
ISBN : 0525654208
A young farmer’s wife draws on her life with kids, cows, and a front-porch view to help us see God’s goodness and beauty wherever we are, reminding us that the simple life is not a place to be but a way to be. “Grab a cup of coffee and join Caitlin on her porch to hear the lessons God has taught her through the good and hard of everyday life.”—Vivian Mabuni, speaker and author of Open Hands, Willing Heart: Discover the Joy of Saying Yes to God When Caitlin, a small-town girl, fell in love with a farm boy named Jake Henderson, she had little idea what farm life—or marriage and motherhood—would bring. But raising a family on a farm is teaching her more about God’s goodness and grace than she could have imagined. Faith, Farming, and Family is a rich, story-filled walk through farmhouse hallways, harvest-ready fields, and God’s bountiful dreams for our lives. As Caitlin reflects on everything from wayward tractors to watching a marriage grow from surviving to flourishing, she reminds us to see the redemption in our own stories. Join Caitlin in exploring biblical truth through the eyes of a farmer’s wife, whether you are wrangling kids onto a school bus, sowing creative seeds in a business meeting, or walking the pastures of your own family farm. Faith, Farming, and Family invites us to recognize God’s beauty right in front of us so that we might find the courage to take the next step—or the first step—into His incredible calling.
Author : Forrest Pritchard
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
Page : 341 pages
File Size : 30,74 MB
Release : 2013-05-21
Category : Nature
ISBN : 0762794380
With humor and pathos, Forrest Pritchard recounts his ambitious and often hilarious endeavors to save his family’s seventh-generation farm in the Shenandoah Valley. Through many a trial and error, he not only saves Smith Meadows from insolvency but turns it into a leading light in the sustainable, grass-fed, organic farm-to-market community. There is nothing young Farmer Pritchard won’t try. Whether he’s selling firewood and straw, raising free-range chickens and hogs, or acquiring a flock of Barbados Blackbelly sheep, his learning curve is steep and always entertaining. Pritchard’s world crackles with colorful local characters—farm hands, butchers, market managers, customers, fellow vendors, pet goats, policemen—bringing the story to warm, communal life. His most important ally, however, is his renegade father, who initially questions his son's career choice and eschews organic foods for the generic kinds that wreak havoc on his health. Soon after his father’s death, the farm becomes a recognized success and Pritchard must make a vital decision: to continue serving the local community or answer the exploding demand for his wares with lucrative Internet sales and shipping deals. More than a charming story of honest food cultivation and farmers’ markets, Gaining Ground tugs on the heartstrings, reconnecting us to the land and the many lives that feed us.
