The most recommended sustainable agriculture books

I first got acquainted with John Seymour through the original version of this book, The Self-Sufficient Gardener. I was charmed by his earthy lore and practical tips – an author who truly knew his stuff. A plus was the beautiful illustrations in the book. Its new permutation, The Self-Sufficient Life and How to Live It was been expanded to cover everything from micro-urban gardens to 5-acre homesteads. While gardening is the focus, the book includes plenty of information on butchering, brewing, canning—even spinning flax. What the book doesn’t include are plans and step-by-step photos for building structures, though it does include rudimentary information on metalworking and carpentry. Most importantly, Seymour has a lifetime of gardening and farming experience to draw upon. The reader reaps the benefit.

Jackson has devoted his career to reforming agriculture by applying ecological principles garnered from prairie lands of the Bread Basket of North America. Based in Kansas, Jackson has worked toward generating perennial crops that don’t need to be seeded annually, and could be grown in mixtures (a grain, an oil seed, and a legume), to support healthy soils that will sustain food production for many generations. This book lays out the arguments for his approach and challenges the basis of our agricultural systems. 

Stephanie has taught me so much about gardening that I didn't even know I needed to know. Her beautiful lessons about permaculture, a word that I didn't understand what it meant until Stephanie took the time to teach me! This is a must-need book in your gardening library.

She has created a beautiful garden of her own where she time-tests all her teachings. The climate in Vancouver Canada makes this a great environment. Stephanie and I became friends years ago when she started her blog and she has promoted my work on several occasions.

I trust her judgment and know she knows her subject and then some!

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.

 I heard Lucas speak on a panel discussion my university had about the Ogallala Aquifer. That put his book—and his tremendously poignant examination of climate change, environmental loss, and human/land interactions in my corner of the world—on my radar.

He included several well-referenced facts I’ve subsequently worked into conversations about environmental damage in our region, as well as a deeply personal accounting of his own family’s contributions to aquifer depletion and our collective complicity in the destruction that will echo in our ecosystem forever.

I am grateful to Bessire for his courage candor, and compassion, for taking an honest look at what has been done to the Plains and what that means for people in this place, and for inviting his readers to journey from willful ignorance to thoughtful reflection to principled action… together.

Like Rachel Carson in Silent Spring,1962, Goulson warns of the catastrophic declines in insects and the resulting threat to all life on Earth. He quotes biologist E O Wilson: "If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos."

Even if we're incapable of valuing wild creatures for themselves and not merely for how they serve us as pollinators or ecosystem managers, we're taking huge risks with our careless approach to herbicides and pesticides; our drive for endless crops and increased meat production leads to devastation for the natural world.

Yes, it's grim, but Goulson, an engaging writer, intersperses the text with descriptions of particularly unusual and endearing insects to lighten the tone - and he also outlines how we can do better. An important and timely book.

This is a very comprehensive book by engineer and TV presenter Dick Strawbridge and his son James. Not only does it cover the usual themes of food production but is also littered with many practical engineering projects that can help you lead a self-reliant life - such as methods for producing your own electricity, water. The many excellent photos help guide you through the projects in detail.

Nancy Castaldo and I are on the same wavelength when it comes to connecting kids and teens to the environment. In The Story of Seeds, she says, “It may sound crazy, even improbable, but there are scientists who are risking their lives every day for seeds. It’s true, and they’ve been doing it for years.” I love her conversational style and the narrative arc of this book. A must-read for teens who like to get their hands dirty.

Perfect for ages 12 and up.

If you only grow from the last frost to the first frost, your gardening season is extremely short. But a few simple season-extension techniques can mean you harvest fresh food nearly every day of the year. I've used Eliot Coleman's crop suggestions and his quick hoops and can say from experience that they make all the difference during the cold season.

Climate change is a hot topic, and so many gurus start writing about it regardless of expertise.

By making extreme claims, backed by selectively-quoted evidence, they can attract attention. The prevailing narrative is that decarbonisation would be easy if we just stop focusing on profits. Smil, an environmental scientist, points out that it’s not that simple. Steel, ammonia, cement, and plastics are “the four material pillars of modern civilisation” and they are inevitably carbon intensive.

We face a difficult trade-off between stunting the economic growth of developing countries, potentially permanently, and allowing the planet to warm, likely irreversibly.