GEOG 129 Human Geography: Resources, Development and Society - Winter 2024

'A powerful polemic against agricultural technology.'—Nature A major new book that shows the world already has the tools to feed itself, without expanding industrial agriculture or adopting genetically modified seeds, from the Small Planet Institute expert Few challenges are more daunting than feeding a global population projected to reach 9.7 billion in 2050—at a time when climate change is making it increasingly difficult to successfully grow crops. In response, corporate and philanthropic leaders have called for major investments in industrial agriculture, including genetically modified seed technologies. Reporting from Africa, Mexico, India, and the United States, Timothy A. Wise's Eating Tomorrow discovers how in country after country agribusiness and its well-heeled philanthropic promoters have hijacked food policies to feed corporate interests. Most of the world, Wise reveals, is fed by hundreds of millions of small-scale farmers, people with few resources and simple tools but a keen understanding of what and how to grow food. These same farmers—who already grow more than 70 percent of the food eaten in developing countries—can show the way forward as the world warms and population increases. Wise takes readers to remote villages to see how farmers are rebuilding soils with ecologically sound practices and nourishing a diversity of native crops without chemicals or imported seeds. They are growing more and healthier food; in the process, they are not just victims in the climate drama but protagonists who have much to teach us all.

The issue of how to assess the sustainability of governance structures is one of the most topical for researchers, farmers, investors, administrators, policymakers, interest groups, and the public at large. In the opening chapter the authors suggest a practical and holistic approach to assessing the sustainability of governing structures in the Bulgarian agri-business sector. Next, the authors propose that nanotechnology has the potential to significantly impact all sectors of agribusiness in the next decade, and may be used to enhance the possibility of re-developing conventional agribusiness resources. The objective of the closing paper is to assess and measure the current growth on the agribusiness of coffee in Mexico, its trends and challenges, the technology being used, and the constraints and goals towards the sustainability of the value chain.

In recent decades, Canada's agricultural industry, one of the world's largest, has had to adjust to global trade developments such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the World Trade Organization. Internationalization and Canadian Agriculture examines the patterns of continuity and change in Canadian agricultural policy making in important areas like farm income support programs, prairie grain marketing, supply management, animal and food product safety, and the regulation of genetically modified crops and foods. Arguing that the effects of internationalization have been mediated by Canada's political institutional framework, Grace Skogstad demonstrates how the goals and strategies of authoritative political actors in Canada's federal and parliamentary systems have been decisive to policy developments. Skogstad details the interaction between agriculture and the political economy of Canada, shows how international and domestic trade shape Canadian agricultural policies, and argues that while agricultural programs have changed, the post-war state assistance agricultural paradigm has persisted. A thorough political analysis and history of late twentieth- and early twenty-first-century Canadian agricultural policy and policy-making, Internationalization of Canadian Agriculture is an important contribution to political economy and public policy.

With the global adoption of the “green revolution” in the 1970s; the long historical legacy of agriculture's boom and bust cycle seemed – finally – to be put on hold. It appeared as though the apocalyptic nightmare of famine had been vanquished.However, now, man-made climate change poses a new and immediate crisis – from Syria to South Sudan – how do we feed the 10 billion people likely to inhabit the planet by 2050? How do we continue to feed, sustainably, the 7.5 billion of us that are already here? How do we do so in a climate that is becoming increasing hostile to food security?This book explores the history of agriculture, and the threat that climate change imposes for all aspects of our “daily bread”. While these challenges are severe and significant, it argues that we are not without hope, and offers a wide range of solutions, from polyculture farming to feminism that can, when applied, lead to a better future for humankind.

The last decade has seen a growing body of research about globalization and climate change in the Caribbean. This collection is a significant addition to the literature on a topic that is of critical importance to the region. It explores research from a number of Caribbean islands dealing with a range of issues related to agriculture and food in the context of globalization and climate change. Using a broad livelihoods perspective, the impacts on rural livelihoods are explored as well as issues related to community level resilience, adaptability and adaptations. The volume is strengthened by gendered analyses of issues and discussions informed by a diverse range of research methods and methodologies. Scholars of Caribbean studies and studies pertaining to social, cultural, economic and environmental issues facing Small Island Developing States (SIDS) will greatly benefit from this book.

The carbon dioxide that industrial civilization spews into the atmosphere has dramatic consequences for life on Earth that extend beyond climate change. CO2 levels directly affect plant growth, in turn affecting any kind of life that depends on plants—in other words, everything.Greenhouse Planet reveals the stakes of increased CO2 for plants, people, and ecosystems—from crop yields to seasonal allergies and from wildfires to biodiversity. The veteran plant biologist Lewis H. Ziska describes the importance of plants for food, medicine, and culture and explores the complex ways higher CO2 concentrations alter the systems on which humanity relies. He explains the science of how increased CO2 affects various plant species and addresses the politicization and disinformation surrounding these facts.Ziska confronts the claim that “CO2 is plant food,” a longtime conservative talking point. While not exactly false, it is deeply misleading. CO2 doesn't just make “good” plants grow; it makes all plants grow. It makes poison ivy more poisonous, kudzu more prolific, cheatgrass more flammable. CO2 stimulates some species more than others: weeds fare particularly well and become harder to control. Many crops grow more abundantly but also become less nutritious. And the further effects of climate change will be formidable.Detailing essential science with wit and panache, Greenhouse Planet is an indispensable book for all readers interested in the ripple effects of increasing CO2.

Small farms represent important components of food systems and rural areas, as sources of occupation and livelihood, factors of socio-economic diversity, cradles of grass-roots innovation and experimentation. Their capacity to adapt and to contribute positively to societal challenges depends on the strategies they can develop and their ability to innovate. The book provides an in-depth exploration of the determinants, dynamics and outcomes of rural and agricultural change processes, with a special focus on the role of small and family farming. Covering both the system and the farm level of analysis, the authors offer a comprehensive view of approaches and models capable to grasp different complementary aspects of the development trajectories followed by farms, food systems and territories facing multi-dimensional drivers of change and exposed to a range of vulnerability factors. The emerging characters and roles of innovation networks and social learning, as well as the decision-making processes at the farm level are explored in particular depth, with attention to the multi-dimensional societal expectations vis-à-vis agriculture, small farms and rural areas, with specific attention to food and nutrition security concerns.

During the First and Second World Wars, food shortages reached critical levels in the Allied nations. The situation in England, which relied heavily on imports and faced German naval blockades, was particularly dire. Government campaigns were introduced in both Britain and the United States to recruit individuals to work on rural farms and to raise gardens in urban areas. These recruits were primarily women, who readily volunteered in what came to be known as Women's Land Armies. Stirred by national propaganda campaigns and a sense of adventure, these women, eager to help in any way possible, worked tirelessly to help their nations grow "victory gardens" to win the war against hunger and fascism. In vacant lots, parks, backyards, between row houses, in flowerboxes, and on farms, groups of primarily urban, middle-class women cultivated vegetables along with a sense of personal pride and achievement.  In Cultivating Victory, Cecilia Gowdy-Wygant presents a compelling study of the sea change brought about in politics, society, and gender roles by these wartime campaigns. As she demonstrates, the seeds of this transformation were sown years before the First World War by women suffragists and international women's organizations. Gowdy-Wygant profiles the foundational organizations and significant individuals in Britain and America, such as Lady Gertrude Denman and Harriet Stanton Blatch, who directed the Women's Land Armies and fought to leverage the wartime efforts of women to eventually win voting rights and garner new positions in the workforce and politics. In her original transnational history, Gowdy-Wygant compares and contrasts the outcomes of war in both nations as seen through changing gender roles and women's ties to labor, agriculture, the home, and the environment. She sheds new light on the cultural legacies left by the Women's Land Armies and their major role in shaping national and personal identities.

Across the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, urban farmers and gardeners are reclaiming cultural traditions linked to food, farming, and health; challenging systemic racism and injustice in the food system; demanding greater community control of resources in marginalized neighborhoods; and moving towards their visions of more equitable urban futures. As part of this urgent work, urban farmers and gardeners encounter and reckon with both the cultural meanings and material legacies of the past. Drawing on their narratives, Back to the Roots demonstrates that urban agriculture is a critical domain for explorations of, and challenges to, the long standing inequalities that shape both the materiality of cities and the bodies of their inhabitants.  

Plant Factory: An Indoor Vertical Farming System for Efficient Quality Food Production, Second Edition presents a comprehensive look at the implementation of plant factory (PF) practices to yield food crops for both improved food security and environmental sustainability. Edited and authored by leading experts in PF and controlled environment agriculture (CEA), the book is divided into five sections, including an Overview and the Concept of Closed Plant Production Systems (CPPS), the Basics of Physics and Physiology - Environments and Their Effects, System Design, Construction, Cultivation and Management and Plant Factories in Operation. In addition to new coverage on the rapid advancement of LED technology and its application in indoor vertical farming, other revisions to the new edition include updated information on the status of business R&D and selected commercial PFALs (plant factory with artificial lighting). Additional updates include those focused on micro and mini-PFALs for improving the quality of life in urban areas, the physics and physiology of light, the impact of PFAL on the medicinal components of plants, and the system design, construction, cultivation and management issues related to transplant production within closed systems, photoautotrophic micro-propagation and education, training and intensive business forums on PFs.

Farming in cities and small spaces is becoming increasingly popular, but it has its challenges. City Farming addresses the problems the urban farmer might face and turns them into creative solutions. It assists the new grower to gain expert understanding of how to create a production urban farm, as well as helping established farmers to discover new ways to bring their space into greater harmony and production. Also covered are integrated approaches that bring together the whole farming system in a small space to produce high yields with minimal energy and effort. The content is organised by themes of importance to urban farmers: sun and heat; water usage; seasonal production; spatial planning; soil quality and usage; propagation and breeding; pests and diseases; farming under time constraints; sustainability; and community initiatives. Each chapter unfolds a piece the story of The Micro Farm Project. The challenges that crop and livestock production present is discussed, and practical solutions to the problems-such as lack of space, high population density, poor soil quality, planning restrictions, etc-are given. Also included are case studies that give examples of different methods used within urban farming from different regions throughout the world. *** "City Farming is an empowering guide to converting small urban spaces into productive food hubs. Filled with both practical advice and heartfelt anecdotes, this book will help you become the next backyard food revolutionary, one plant or pasture at a time." --Edible Phoenix, Winter 2017 *** "...provides expert advice on growing a wide variety of fruits and vegetables and raising small livestock in a straight-forward and non-technical way that is aimed at everyone interested in establishing an outdoor plot on any scale, from a modest backyard to a fully functioning small farm." --North Central News, February 2018 [Subject: Urban Farming, Farm Studies]

This book is about urban agriculture as a source of livelihood for urban dwellers in Nakuru town, Kenya. Various aspects of the phenomenon are discussed, with particular emphasis on its importance for the urban poor.