Staff Pick Reading List (Part 2!)
We are back with a few more suggestions! Our staff had more great picks on Food Justice, the Food Supply Chain and Farming that we wanted to share with you.
Food Routes
Robyn Metcalfe
Source: Google Books
Media attention to food features inventive and charismatic chefs, the rise of farmer's markets and of food deserts, GMO controversies, the power of culture in cuisine, diet fads, and so on. But how does food, be it industrial or small scale, local or international, nutritious or unhealthy get to our plate? This book shows us how. Stories that inform us about how food moves from the producer to the consumer are only just appearing and are timely relative to the developments in food distribution. Without understanding the complex and adaptive global food supply chain, consumers, policy makers, and the food industry fail to appreciate the full range of opportunities for innovation.
Source: MIT Press
Growing a Revolution
David R. Montgomery
Source: Google Books
Growing a Revolution is an impassioned call to make agriculture sustainable by ditching the plow, covering the soil, and diversifying crop rotations.Throughout history, great societies that abused their land withered into poverty or disappeared entirely. Now we risk repeating this ancient story on a global scale due to ongoing soil degradation, a changing climate, and a rising population.But there is reason for hope. David R. Montgomery introduces us to farmers around the world at the heart of a brewing soil health revolution that could bring humanity's ailing soil back to life remarkably fast. Growing a Revolution draws on visits to farms in the industrialized world and developing world to show that a new combination of farming practices can deliver innovative, cost-effective solutions to problems farmers face today.
Source: W.W. Norton
Farming While Black
Leah Penniman
Source: Google Books
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 Latinx 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.
Source: Chelsea Green Publishing
Learn more: Soul Fire Farm
Food: A Very Short Introduction
John Krebs
Source: Google Books
In this Very Short Introduction, Prof Lord John Krebs provides a brief history of human food, from our remote ancestors 3 million years ago to the present day. By looking at the four great transitions in human food - cooking, agriculture, processing, and preservation - he considers a variety of questions, including why people like some kinds of foods and not others; how your senses contribute to flavour; the role of genetics in our likes and dislikes; and the differences in learning and culture around the world. In turn he considers aspects of diet, nutrition, and health, and the disparity between malnutrition in some places and overconsumption in others. Finally, he considers some of the big issues - the obesity crisis, sustainable agriculture, the role of new technologies such as genetic modification of crops, and ends by posing the question: how will it be possible to feed a population of 9 billion in 2050, without destroying our natural environment?
Source: Oxford University Press
Agriculture: A Very Short Introduction
Paul Brassley and Richard Soffe
Source: Google Books
Agriculture, one of the oldest human occupations, is practised all over the world, using techniques ranging from the profoundly traditional to the most scientifically advanced. Without it we would starve. Yet how many of us understand what is happening in the fields that we see as we drive through the countryside? How often do we think about the origins of the food in our trolley?
In this Very Short Introduction Paul Brassley and Richard Soffe explain what farmers do and why they do it. Beginning with the most basic resource, the soil, they show why it is important, and how farmers can increase its productivity, before turning to the plants and animals that grow on it, and tracing the connections between their biology and the various ways in which farmers work with them. The authors conclude by looking at some of the controversial issues facing contemporary agriculture: its sustainability; its impact on wildlife and landscape; issues of animal welfare; and the effect of climate change and the development of genetically modified organisms on farmers.
Source: Oxford University Press
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle
Barbara Kingsolver, Steven L. Hopp, and Camille Kingsolver
Source: Google Books
Hang on for the ride: With characteristic poetry and pluck, Barbara Kingsolver and her family sweep readers along on their journey away from the industrial-food pipeline to a rural life in which they vow to buy only food raised in their own neighborhood, grow it themselves, or learn to live without it. Their good-humored search yields surprising discoveries about turkey sex life and overly zealous zucchini plants, en route to a food culture that's better for the neighborhood and also better on the table. Part memoir, part journalistic investigation, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle makes a passionate case for putting the kitchen back at the center of family life and diversified farms at the center of the American diet.
Source: HarperCollins Publishers
Enjoy!
