Explaining and Exploring Diversity in Agricultural Technology

Explaining and Exploring Diversity in Agricultural Technology PDF Author: Annelou van Gijn
Publisher: Oxbow Books
ISBN: 1782970215
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 406

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Book Description
This volume is the outcome of collaborative European research among archaeologists, archaeobotanists, ethnographers, historians and agronomists, and frequently uses experiments in archaeology. It aims to establish new common ground for integrating different approaches and for viewing agriculture from the standpoint of the human actors involved. Each chapter provides an interdisciplinary overview of the skills used and the social context of the pursuit of agriculture, highlighting examples of tools, technologies and processes from land clearance to cereal processing and food preparation. This is the second of three volumes in the EARTH monograph series, The dynamics of non-industrial agriculture: 8,000 years of resilience and innovation , which shows the great variety of agricultural practices in human terms, in their social, political, cultural and legal contexts.

Culture and Agriculture

Culture and Agriculture PDF Author: Ernest L. Schusky
Publisher: Praeger
ISBN:
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
In the Foreword to Culture and Agriculture, distinguished anthropologist John W. Bennett writes Dr. Schusky's book is welcome. It marks a point of maturity for anthropology's interest in agriculture, a distillation of decades of research and thought on the most important survival task facing humankind, the production of food. Although applauded by a specialist in the field, Schusky's book is specifically written for the general reader who is interested in agriculture. It offers a historical overview of the two major periods of agriculture--the Neolithic Revolution, which occurred when humans initally domesticated plants and animals, and the Neoclaric Revolution, which began the introduction of fossil fuel into agriculture in the twentieth century. Culture and Agriculture dramatizes the extensive changes that are occurring in modern agriculture due to the intensified use of fossil energy. The book details how the overdependence on fossil energy, with its looming exhaustion, is a major cause of pessimism about food production. The book also addresses the possible solutions to this scenario--conservation steps, an increase in the mix of solar energy, and an emphasis on human labor--which hold out hope for the future. Part I introduces the discovery or domestication of plants and animals (the Neolithic), along with the later use of irrigation, in order to show that most agricultural development, until the twentieth century, occurred between 5,000 and 10,000 years ago. Part II presents a brief survey of agricultural history which demonstrates that hunger had more to do with inequity in the social system than in the amounts of food produced. Agricultural history also emphasizes how little change occurred in agriculture from 5,000 years ago until the twentieth century, when the use of fossil energy revolutionized food production. In assessing the future of agricultural development, Schusky underscores the importance of economic and political policies that emphasize equity in distribution of wealth and government services. This book should appeal to the general reader interested in agriculture, rural sociology, or anthropology.

The Good Farmer

The Good Farmer PDF Author: Rob J.F. Burton
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351749749
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
Developed by leading authors in the field, this book offers a cohesive and definitive theorisation of the concept of the 'good farmer', integrating historical analysis, critique of contemporary applications of good farming concepts, and new case studies, providing a springboard for future research. The concept of the good farmer has emerged in recent years as part of a move away from attitude and economic-based understandings of farm decision-making towards a deeper understanding of culture and symbolism in agriculture. The Good Farmer shows why agricultural production is socially and culturally, as well as economically, important. It explores the history of the concept and its position in contemporary theory, as well as its use and meaning in a variety of different contexts, including landscape, environment, gender, society, and as a tool for resistance. By exploring the idea of the good farmer, it reveals the often-unforeseen assumptions implicit in food and agricultural policy that draw on culture, identity, and presumed notions of what is 'good'. The book concludes by considering the potential of the good farmer concept for addressing future, emerging issues in agriculture. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of food and agriculture and rural development, as well as professionals and policymakers involved in the food and agricultural industry.

The Unsettling of America

The Unsettling of America PDF Author: Wendell Berry
Publisher: Turtleback Books
ISBN: 9781417629510
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 234

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Book Description
A critical inquiry into the ways Americans have exploited and continue to exploit the land that sustains them, tracing attitudes toward and methods of farming from the eighteenth century to the present

Farming for Us All

Farming for Us All PDF Author: Michael Mayerfeld Bell
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271097906
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 398

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Book Description
Climate change. Habitat loss. Soil erosion. Groundwater depletion. Toxins in our food. Inhumane treatment of farm animals. Increasing farm worker exploitation. Hunger and malnutrition in the midst of plenty. What will it take for farmers in the United States to embrace sustainable practices? Michael Mayerfeld Bell’s Farming for Us All first tackled this question twenty years ago, providing crucial insight into how the structure of US agriculture created this situation and exploring, by contrast, the practices of farmers who are working together to radically change how they think, learn, and grow. This updated edition of his now-classic work reflects on the lessons learned over the past two decades. Constrained by an oppressive nexus of markets, regulations, subsidies, and technology, farmers find themselves undermining their own economic and social security as well as the security of the land. Bell turns to Practical Farmers of Iowa (PFI), that state’s largest sustainable-agriculture group. He traces how PFI creates an agriculture that engages others—farmers, researchers, officials, and consumers—in a common conversation about what agriculture could look like. Through dialogue, PFI members crossbreed knowledge, discovering pragmatic solutions to help crops grow in ways that sustain families, communities, societies, economies, and environments. Farming for Us All makes the case that for sustainable farming to flourish, new social relations are as important to cultivate as new crops. This book is necessary—and hopeful—reading for anyone concerned about the present and future of food and farming.

Explaining and Exploring Diversity in Agricultural Technology

Explaining and Exploring Diversity in Agricultural Technology PDF Author: Annelou van Gijn
Publisher: Oxbow Books
ISBN: 1782970215
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 406

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Book Description
This volume is the outcome of collaborative European research among archaeologists, archaeobotanists, ethnographers, historians and agronomists, and frequently uses experiments in archaeology. It aims to establish new common ground for integrating different approaches and for viewing agriculture from the standpoint of the human actors involved. Each chapter provides an interdisciplinary overview of the skills used and the social context of the pursuit of agriculture, highlighting examples of tools, technologies and processes from land clearance to cereal processing and food preparation. This is the second of three volumes in the EARTH monograph series, The dynamics of non-industrial agriculture: 8,000 years of resilience and innovation , which shows the great variety of agricultural practices in human terms, in their social, political, cultural and legal contexts.

Farming for Our Future

Farming for Our Future PDF Author: PETER H.. ROSENBERG LEHNER (NATHAN A.)
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781585762378
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
Farming for Our Future examines the policies and legal reforms necessary to accelerate the adoption of practices that can make agriculture in the United States climate-neutral or better. These proven practices will also make our food system more resilient to the impacts of climate change. Agriculture's contribution to climate change is substantial--much more so than official figures suggest--and we will not be able to achieve our overall mitigation goals unless agricultural emissions sharply decline. Fortunately, farms and ranches can be a major part of the climate solution, while protecting biodiversity, strengthening rural communities, and improving the lives of the workers who cultivate our crops and rear our animals. The importance of agricultural climate solutions can not be underestimated; it is a critical element both in ensuring our food security and limiting climate change. This book provides essential solutions to address the greatest crises of our time.

The Unsettling of America

The Unsettling of America PDF Author: Wendell Berry
Publisher: Catapult
ISBN: 1619026961
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
Since its publication in 1977, The Unsettling of America has been recognized as a classic of American letters. In it, Wendell Berry argues that good farming is a cultural and spiritual discipline. Today’s agribusiness, however, takes farming out of its cultural context and away from families. As a result, we as a nation are more estranged from the land—from the intimate knowledge, love, and care of it. Sadly, his arguments and observations are more relevant than ever. Although “this book has not had the happy fate of being proved wrong,” Berry writes, there are people working “to make something comely and enduring of our life on this earth.” Wendell Berry is one of those people, writing and working, as ever, with passion, eloquence, and conviction.

The Culture of Farm Crops

The Culture of Farm Crops PDF Author: Henry Stewart
Publisher: Forgotten Books
ISBN: 9780267800704
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 342

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Book Description
Excerpt from The Culture of Farm Crops: A Manual of the Science of Agriculture, and a Hand-Book of Practice for American Farmers Not a farmer of that day, nor a chemist, knew that bones furnished phosphoric acid to plants; or that guano provided in its ammonia the materials from which their gluten and other nitrogenous substances were derived. Indeed the renowned father of agricultural science: Liebig - when he propounded his mineral theory, which was that the ashes of plants contained everything which they drew from the soil, and that if the mineral substances contained in the ashes, were supplied in sufficient quantity to the crops, there would be scarcely a limit to the product, excepting the space in which they were contained - knew nothing about the invaluable nitrogen which we now know to be wholly indispensable to plant growth. But light has grad ually dawned upon us, and by slow and sometimes faltering progress, there has been built up a system of agricultural science which explains the laws of plant growth and affords the most important information to the cultivator of the soil. Science is based upon fact. Philosophy is based upon speculation. Science is the outgrowth of philosophy, be cause before we can reach a true knowledge of any fact we must approach the study of it by a well devised theory, changed as may be necessary, and tested patiently and slowly until the knowledge sought is found. This know ledge, when verified by practice, sufficiently proved and classified, becomes science. Science then is nothing for the farmer to fear, or cast doubt and suspicion upon. Theory as has been said, has no part or lot in it; it is a summary of known facts, and is therefore of the most valuable use to the farmer as it gives him a sound basis upon which to build up such conclusions in regard to his practice as will enable him to meet the various difficulties which are al ways arising in his work. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Culture and Agriculture

Culture and Agriculture PDF Author: Horace Miner
Publisher: U OF M MUSEUM ANTHRO ARCHAEOLOGY
ISBN: 1949098508
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 105

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Book Description


Tissue Culture in Forestry and Agriculture

Tissue Culture in Forestry and Agriculture PDF Author: Randolph R. Henke
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 148990378X
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 390

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Book Description
This symposium is the third in a series featuring the propaga tion of higher plants through tissue culture. The first of these symposia, entitled "A Bridge Between Research and Application," was held at the University in 1978 and was published by the Technical Information Center, Department of Energy. The second symposium, on "Emerging Technologies and Strategies," was held in 1980 and pub lished as a special issue of Environmental and Experimental Botany. One of the aims of these symposia was to examine the current state of-the-art in tissue culture technology and to relate this state of technology to practical, applied, and commercial interests. Thus, the third of this series on development and variation focused on embryogenesis in culture: how to recognize it, factors which affect embryogenesis, use of embryogenic systems, etc.; and variability from culture. A special session on woody species again emphasized somatic embryogenesis as a means of rapid propagation. This volume emphasizes tissue culture of forest trees. All of these areas, we feel, are breakthrough areas in which significant progress is expected in the next few years.