The short answer is, a retired university professor (Fred) and the coordinator of Natural Areas for the University of Illinois (James). That answer, however, doesn’t give a clue as to how we came to write our book. Fred and his wife established a small three-acre prairie on their land in 2003. They then enlisted James and Grand Prairie Friends, the local conservation organization he headed at the time, to help manage the prairie. Eventually, Fred, who had photographically documented the growth of the prairie and the beauty to be found therein, proposed that he and James describe the prairie with photos so that others could also learn to enjoy it. The rest, as they say, is history.
The most scholarly and detailed book of our five choices, this book by Candice Savage, now in a revised edition, considers in depth not just the tallgrass prairie, but the entire sweep of North American grasslands. Savage recounts details that most people will never have thought of – such as how the bison were an integral part of the prairie ecosystem by creating buffalo wallows that persisted for years and provided shallow and temporary wetlands in what, to the west, was an otherwise dry environment. Start your exploration of prairie with this book or finish with it, but do not skip it. Its overview of the entire region puts the information in the other books into context.
Candace Savage's acclaimed and beautifully written guide to the ecology of the prairies, now revised and updated.
Praise for the previous edition of Prairie: "Impelled with its sense of the miraculous in nature."-Globe and Mail
This revised edition of Prairie features a new preface along with updated research on the effects of climate change on an increasingly vulnerable landscape.
It also offers new information on: * conservation of threatened species, including the black-tailed prairie dog and farmland birds; * grassland loss and conservation; * the health of rivers and the water table; * the effects of neonicotinoid insecticides on prairie…
This book is very well researched, and despite a lot of information, is very clearly presented.
This book started my process from leaving behind 30 years of being a vegetarian to now eating meat from animals that are grass-fed (and grass-finished, when possible), and supporting regenerative farming – a change that is much better for my health and for the planet.
'Persuasive, entertaining and well researched' Sunday Times
Plant-based is best for health, go vegan to help save the planet, eat less meat... Almost every day we are bombarded with the seemingly incontrovertible message that we must reduce our consumption of meat and dairy - or eliminate them from our diets altogether.
But what if the pervasive message that the plant-based diet will improve our health and save the planet is misleading - or even false? What if removing animal foods from our diet is a serious threat to human health, and a red herring…
I am an author and former environmental activist who dropped out of the ‘conflict industry’ in 1997 to start the Quivira Coalition, a nonprofit organization dedicated to building a radical center among ranchers, environmentalists, scientists, and others around practices that improve resilience in working landscapes. For two decades, I worked on the front lines of collaborative conservation and regenerative agriculture, sharing innovative, land-based solutions to food, water, and climate challenges. I live in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
In this book, Australian farmer Charles Massey takes a ‘big picture’ view of regenerative agriculture. It’s full of personal stories but it also goes deep into the history of industrial agriculture, the damage it continues to do, and how we can heal the planet. Massey lays out an inspiring vision for a new agriculture and the vital connections between our soil and our health. It’s a story of how a grassroots revolution can help turn climate change around and build healthy communities, pivoting on our relationship with growing and consuming food.
Part lyrical nature writing, part storytelling, part solid scientific evidence, part scholarly research, part memoir, the book is an elegant manifesto, an urgent call to stop trashing the Earth and start healing it. the Guardian
Perfect for readers of Wilding, Dirt to Soil and English Pastoral!
Call of the Reed Warbler is a clarion call for the global transformation of agriculture, and an in-depth look at the visionary farmers who are revolutionising the way we grow, eat, and think about food.
Using his personal experience as a touchstone, starting as a chemical-dependent farmer with dead soils, he recounts his journey…
I am an author and former environmental activist who dropped out of the ‘conflict industry’ in 1997 to start the Quivira Coalition, a nonprofit organization dedicated to building a radical center among ranchers, environmentalists, scientists, and others around practices that improve resilience in working landscapes. For two decades, I worked on the front lines of collaborative conservation and regenerative agriculture, sharing innovative, land-based solutions to food, water, and climate challenges. I live in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Farming While Black explores an often neglected perspective on regenerative agriculture. It is a “how to” guide for aspiring African-heritage growers to reclaim their dignity as agriculturists, but Penniman also wants everyone to understand the contributions of African-heritage people to farming. She explores soil fertility, seed selection, using whole foods in culturally appropriate recipes, and sharing stories of ancestors including the trauma associated with slavery and economic exploitation. The book tells the story of Soul Fire Farm, located in upstate New York, a national leader in the food justice movement.
Leah Penniman - recipient of the James Beard Foundation Leadership Award 2019'An extraordinary book...part agricultural guide, part revolutionary manifesto.' VOGUE
'Farming While Black offers a guide to reclaiming food systems from white supremacy.' Bon Appetit
In 1920, 14 percent of all land-owning US farmers were black. Today less than 2 percent of farms are controlled by black people, a loss of over 14 million acres and the result of discrimination and dispossession. While farm management is among the whitest of professions, farm labour is predominantly brown and exploited and people of color disproportionately live in 'food apartheid' neighborhoods and suffer…
Working as a social anthropologist in Uganda, Ghana, Malaysia, and Catalonia, I became fascinated by villages as microcosms of broader social change, places where history can be observed in the making through the lives and histories of families and of their members. Villages are anything but ‘natural’ communities or social backwaters. They survive (or perish) because people, beliefs, and goods are continually moving in and out. Village lives are certainly shaped by state and society, but the impact goes both ways. Each of my selected books tells a gripping and distinctive story of villagers grappling with social and cultural tension, the forces of change, and the challenges of survival.
This too is a tale of three village generations grappling with historical change.
Here the story is about changing ideas of stewardship of the land, an enthralling account of farming ways in flux and of the intricate, back-breaking, and unpredictable work of restoring degraded farmland to health.
The Rebanks family run a hill-farm in a Lake District village. Rebanks’ grandfather started with horse-ploughs. A tractor replaced the horses, yet he still knew the individual ways of every ewe and cow and farmed lightly on the land. But Rebanks’ father, caught in market pressures, industrialized his farming methods.
Progressbecame the mantra of all the village farmers, including the young Rebanks himself.
Today, although they recognize the precarity of their livelihood and the damage to the land, most see no alternative to intensifying production. When Rebanks decides to switch to regenerative farming to preserve the land for future generations, his fellow…
The new bestseller from the author of The Shepherd's Life
'A beautifully written story of a family, a home and a changing landscape' Nigel Slater
As a boy, James Rebanks's grandfather taught him to work the land the old way. Their family farm in the Lake District hills was part of an ancient agricultural landscape: a patchwork of crops and meadows, of pastures grazed with livestock, and hedgerows teeming with wildlife. And yet, by the time James inherited the farm, it was barely recognisable. The men and women had vanished from the…
I am an author and former environmental activist who dropped out of the ‘conflict industry’ in 1997 to start the Quivira Coalition, a nonprofit organization dedicated to building a radical center among ranchers, environmentalists, scientists, and others around practices that improve resilience in working landscapes. For two decades, I worked on the front lines of collaborative conservation and regenerative agriculture, sharing innovative, land-based solutions to food, water, and climate challenges. I live in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Gabe Brown didn’t set out to change the world when he first started working alongside his father-in-law on the family farm in North Dakota. But a series of weather-related crop disasters put Brown in desperate financial straits. He decided to quit the industrial model of food production and began experimenting with regenerative agriculture instead. He stopped using herbicides, insecticides, and synthetic fertilizers. He no-tilled diverse crops into his fields and changed his grazing practices. By doing so, Brown transformed a degraded farm ecosystem into one full of life. Brown has grown several inches of new topsoil in only twenty years and turned the farm into a diverse, profitable enterprise. This book is a great introduction for all readers.
'Dirt to Soil is the [regenerative farming] movements's holy text' The Observer
Author and farmer Gabe Brown, featured in the Netflix documentary Kiss the Ground
'A regenerative no-till pioneer' NBC News
'Dirt to Soil confirms my belief that animals are part of the natural land. We need to reintegrate livestock and crops on our farms and ranches, and Gabe Brown shows us how to do it well.' Temple Grandin, author of Animals in Translation
Soil health pioneer Gabe Brown did not set out to write a book on no-till, regenerative agriculture but that was the end product of his research…
I am an author and former environmental activist who dropped out of the ‘conflict industry’ in 1997 to start the Quivira Coalition, a nonprofit organization dedicated to building a radical center among ranchers, environmentalists, scientists, and others around practices that improve resilience in working landscapes. For two decades, I worked on the front lines of collaborative conservation and regenerative agriculture, sharing innovative, land-based solutions to food, water, and climate challenges. I live in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
In this lively book, soil scientist Nicole Masters digs into the global soil crisis and explains how regenerative agriculture can restore degraded land, repair natural cycles, and bring vitality back to ecosystems. The book translates the often complex and technical know-how of soil into understandable terms with case studies from regenerative farmers and ranchers in Australasia and North America. Along with sharing key soil health principles and restoration tools, Masters provides an action plan to heal the planet.
*Newly Edited Version* Learn a roadmap to healthy soil and revitalised food systems for powerfully address these times of challenge. This book equips producers with knowledge, skills and insights to regenerate ecosystem health and grow farm/ranch profits. Learn how to:- Triage soil health and act to fast-track soil and plant health-Build healthy resilient soil systems-Develop a deeper understanding of microbial and mineral synergies-Read what weeds and diseases are communicating about soil and plant health-Create healthy, productive and profitable landscapes.Globally recognised soil advocate and agroecologist Nicole Masters delivers the solution to rewind the clock on this increasingly critical soil crisis in…
I am an author and former environmental activist who dropped out of the ‘conflict industry’ in 1997 to start the Quivira Coalition, a nonprofit organization dedicated to building a radical center among ranchers, environmentalists, scientists, and others around practices that improve resilience in working landscapes. For two decades, I worked on the front lines of collaborative conservation and regenerative agriculture, sharing innovative, land-based solutions to food, water, and climate challenges. I live in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Farmer and author Wendell Berry is a personal hero of mine. From his home in Kentucky, Berry has been writing about regenerative agriculture for decades. The Art of the Commonplace gathers together twenty of his best essays. They articulate a compelling vision for people dissatisfied with the stress, anxiety, disease, and destructiveness of contemporary life. Berry is also the author of numerous works of poetry and fiction.
"Here is a human being speaking with calm and sanity out of the wilderness. We would do well to hear him." ―The Washington Post Book World
The Art of the Commonplace gathers twenty essays by Wendell Berry that offer an agrarian alternative to our dominant urban culture. Grouped around five themes―an agrarian critique of culture, agrarian fundamentals, agrarian economics, agrarian religion, and geobiography―these essays promote a clearly defined and compelling vision important to all people dissatisfied with the stress, anxiety, disease, and destructiveness of contemporary American culture.
Why is agriculture becoming culturally irrelevant, and at what cost? What are the…
