Author : Ronald Jager
Publisher : UPNE
Page : 268 pages
File Size : 28,26 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 : 36,37 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 : Robert L. Switzer
Publisher : Center for American Places
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 25,22 MB
Release : 2012
Category : Dairy farms
ISBN : 9781935195344
Switzer's memoir covers four generations of life on the family farm in Illinois. The tale is enhanced with photographs plus watercolors and woodblock prints by the author's wife and son. Frank E. Barmore adds information about the nineteenth-century history of this family farm, the Barmore family, and the settling of that area of Illinois.
Author : Forrest Pritchard
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
Page : 341 pages
File Size : 21,82 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.
Author : Ted Genoways
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
Page : 162 pages
File Size : 49,66 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 : Sarah K Mock
Publisher :
Page : 268 pages
File Size : 34,41 MB
Release : 2021-04-26
Category :
ISBN : 9781636768205
We love The American Farmer. We trust them to grow our food, to be part of children's nursery rhymes, to provide the economic backbone of rural communities, and to embody a version of the American dream. At the same time, we know that "corporate farms" are disrupting the agrarian way of life that we so admire, and that we've got to do something to stop it. So what's our plan for saving the farms we love? In Farm (and Other F Words), Sarah K Mock dismantles misconceptions about American farms and discovers what makes small family farms work, or why they don't. While exploring the intersection of farming and wealth, Mock offers an alternative perspective on American agricultural history, and outlines a path to a more equitable food system moving forward. Calling for change, Farm (and Other F Words) tackles questions like: Do farmers really get paid not to farm? Are "big corporate farms" the future? How much good has the food movement done for small family farmers? Ultimately, Mock suggests a solution without putting the onus for change on struggling consumers and reminds us that, "the future of American agriculture is not yet decided."
Author : Caitlin Henderson
Publisher : WaterBrook
Page : 225 pages
File Size : 31,96 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 : Ingolf Vogeler
Publisher : CRC Press
Page : 362 pages
File Size : 21,45 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 : Beth Hoffman
Publisher : Island Press
Page : 274 pages
File Size : 36,42 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 : Ronald Jager
Publisher : Boston : Beacon Press
Page : 288 pages
File Size : 15,78 MB
Release : 1990
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN :
A coffee-table celebration of the beauty and impact of the tower. An artistic focus, rather than technical. Minimal bibliography. No index. 10 In this richly detailed memoir, Jager evokes rural America (i.e. Missaukee County, Michigan) in the 1940s and a life defined by wartime economy, the mores of Dutch Calvinism, and the seasons of a small family farm. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
