Farmbrarian

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Richard Wiswall’s The Organic Farmer’s Business Handbook: A Complete Guide to Managing Finances, Crops and Staff – and Making a Profit (2009), is an excellent resource for any farmer. Given the recent trend of abandoning a day job to start a small farm, this book should certainly be a success.

The book aims to teach readers how to run a profitable farm, and the focus is distinctly financial. Wiswall successfully explains how to treat your farm as a business and then how to run it profitably, like any good entrepreneur would. “Farm for profit, not production,” (15) he implores. Wiswall provides a step-by-step approach to reaching a target income, including exactly what to grow and how much, along with where to sell.  Also addressed are the often scary topics of writing a business plan, managing staff, marketing, and other concerns. Very little information is given on farming and growing practices, which was an appropriate choice by the author, given the plethora of existing material on such topics.

A successful farm truly is much more than growing and selling food. Richard Wiswall has provided a great asset–especially for farmers looking to improve profitability or get up and running.

This book was kindly provided by Chelsea Green Publishing–thanks for the resource!

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Leslie Marmon Silko, a well-known Native American author, delivers rich prose and a captivating plot in Gardens in the Dunes (1999). The book is a rare work of fiction that fuses imaginary stories with historical and horticultural facts that will pique the interest of many.

Set at the turn of the 19^th century, Indigo and her older sister are the last members of a little-known tribe living in a desert garden oasis. The story follows the young girls as they struggle to survive persecution by American authorities.

Eventually ‘Indian police’ capture the pair and Indigo is sent to an Indian boarding school, while her sister is forced to move to a reservation. As the two displaced sisters try to reunite, the plot thickens. Silko includes a diverse character set and discusses a great number of historical issues, but the gardens in the dunes remain at the heart of the novel.

An intricate fictional storyline and reoccurring themes of botany, horticulture, and respect for the natural world will keep readers turning the pages. For a more thorough summary, see a brief synopsis in Time magazine or a longer review by the San Francisco Chronicle.

The great majority of our reviews will focus on nonfiction. But occasionally we all need a good fictional tale. Finding fiction that incorporates themes of agriculture, ecology, or other related subjects has proven difficult. If you have any suggestions, please share!

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Pamela Ronald and Raoul Adamchak are an unlikely husband and wife duo that joins forces to provide a unique discussion on the roles of organic farming and genetic engineering in present-day and future agriculture. Both work at the University of California, Davis: Adamchak as an organic farmer and Ronald as a plant geneticist doing research mostly on rice.

Ronald’s unique position makes her argument in favor of transgenic crops much easier to digest than one taken out of a Monsanto catalog. She shows why, in her opinion, genetically engineered crops and organic methods are not only compatible, but mutually dependent.

Set in the authors’ Sacramento Valley community, Tomorrow’s Table: Organic Farming, Genetics, and the Future of Food (2008) reads like a civil discussion among friends or respected colleagues. The focus of the debate is on the best way to properly sustain the earth, while feeding a growing population.

The book gave me better understanding of and some level of respect for transgenic crops. It is a useful contribution to the food movement that provides a surprisingly objective look at the use of genetic engineering in modern day agriculture.

Quotes:

• “What if…GE is a tool that can be refined and shared, as grapes can be fermented and made into wine that delights and nourishes those who drink it?”(68)
• “Herbicide-resistant soybean has helped foster use of low-till and no-till agriculture, which leaves the fertile topsoil intact and protects it from [erosion].” (70)

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In July 2005, artist Fritz Haeg arrived in Salina, Kansas to create an exhibition commissioned by the town’s art center. Haeg proceeded to replace the tough Bermuda grass of a selected Salina lawn with a completely edible landscape. Thus began the Edible Estates series.

Haeg warns in the preface that “this book is not intended as a how-to or technical resource for making your own Edible Estate” (11). A scrapbook is a better term.

The book (2008) begins with a series of essays condemning the front lawn, including excerpted text from Michael Pollan’s Second Nature: A Gardener’s Education.  Each essay presents a different perspective, but all of the authors agree that traditional lawns are a useless monoculture. The second portion profiles the Edible Estates Haeg designed throughout the United States and beyond. Reflections from the homeowners who volunteered their lawns are also included here. The next section of the book is comprised of testimonials from others who have transformed their front lawns independent of the Edible Estates project. A planting calendar for each climate zone, a selection of statistics, and a helpful bibliography conclude the book.

The hodge-podge theme is reinforced through the book’s style: matted black and white pages are followed by vibrant, glossy ones, which are proceeded by undyed, textured pages. Just as Haeg’s text combines varying styles and stories to create one-cohesive text, Edible Estates are created by fusing climates, communities, personal preferences, and other influences.

Collectively, lawns comprise more than 30 million acres in the United States (118); and just like lands used for conventional agriculture, most of this acreage is doused yearly with chemicals.  Although this book is far from comprehensive, it serves as an accessible introduction to alternative landscapes that are more productive and more environmentally friendly than the green that likely encircles your home now.

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Interest in raw milk has been growing steadily as of late, and along with it has come pressure from state and federal regulatory agencies on suppliers to stop providing the controversial food.  In The Raw Milk Revolution: Behind America’s Emerging Battle Over Food Rights, business journalist David Gumpert examines the legal bout over unpasteurized milk that has taken place over the last several years.

Concern begins with a small group of people getting sick and testing positive for the famous e.coli strain 0157:H7. Next, state officials deem that the occasionally life-threatening bacteria were contracted by drinking raw milk. (Gumpert shows just how inconclusive these findings can be, however.) Newspapers run headlines about raw milk nearly taking the life of someone’s child, and whether justified or not, the farmer is run out of business and a fear of the drink is established. The legal precedents being set in examples like this one are literally changing the rights of raw milk consumers and producers as you read this.

In addition to analyzing recent legal actions, the book presents anecdotal and scientific information on the health benefits and risks of consuming unpasteurized milk.  Many believe pasteurization destroys vitamins and enzymes (like lactase, the enzyme used to digest lactose), as well as various beneficial bacteria that are thought to play a role in strengthening our immune systems. Raw milk, like pasteurized milk, can however harbor dangerous bacteria if caution is not taken in production and distribution. Many outbreaks have been attributed to the consumption of raw milk throughout history. Gumpert makes it clear that he is pro-raw milk, but provides a very fair assessment of conflicting opinions.

Gumpert is also the author of the blog The Complete Patient, which began in 2006 and primarily discusses raw milk. The book frequently refers to the blog, including extensive quoting of both posts and comments. With the exception of some redundancies, the book is well presented and easy to understand.

A larger debate exists concerning food rights in general, and journalists like Gumpert are doing great work to illuminate the problems with our food system so that we can be free to produce and consume healthy foods. Overall, The Raw Milk Revolution is a great resource for anyone interested in raw milk.

A review copy of this book was kindly provided by Chelsea Green Publishing—thanks for sharing!