Agriculture Book List ·

The Midwestern Native Garden

Native Alternatives to Nonnative Flowers and Plants, an Illustrated Guide

By Charlotte Adelman and Bernard L. Schwartz

Midwestern gardeners and landscapers are becoming increasingly attracted to noninvasive regional native wildflowers and plants over popular nonnative species. The Midwestern Native Garden offers viable alternatives to both amateurs and professionals, whether they are considering adding a few native plants or intending to go native all the way.…

The Locavore’s Kitchen

A Cook’s Guide to Seasonal Eating and Preserving

By Marilou K. Suszko

More and more Americans are becoming dedicated locavores, people who prefer to eat locally grown or produced foods and who enjoy the distinctive flavors only a local harvest can deliver. The Locavore’s Kitchen invites readers to savor homegrown foods that come from the garden, the farm stand down the road, or local farmers’ markets through cooking and preserving the freshest ingredients.…

Organic Coffee

Sustainable Development by Mayan Farmers

By Maria Elena Martinez-Torres

Despite deepening poverty and environmental degradation throughout rural Latin America, Mayan peasant farmers in Chiapas, Mexico, are finding environmental and economic success by growing organic coffee.…

All Flesh is Grass

The Pleasures and Promises of Pasture Farming

By Gene Logsdon

Amidst Mad Cow scares and consumer concerns about how farm animals are bred, fed, and raised, many farmers and homesteaders are rediscovering the traditional practice of pastoral farming. Grasses, clovers, and forbs are the natural diet of cattle, horses, and sheep, and are vital supplements for hogs, chickens, and turkeys.…

Islands of Intensive Agriculture in Eastern Africa

Edited by Mats Widgren and John E.G. Sutton

Islands of intensive agriculture are areas of local cultivation surrounded by low-density livestock herders or extensive cultivators. Along the line of the East Africa Rift Valley, and in the highlands on either side, communities of considerable historical depth have developed highly specialized agricultural regimes, employing such labor-intensive devices as furrow irrigation, hillside terracing, and stall-feeding of cattle.…

Leaf of Allah

Khat & Agricultural Transformation in Harerge, Ethiopia, 1875–1991

By Ezekiel Gebissa

Khat is a quasi-legal psychoactive shrub, produced and marketed in the province of Harerge, Ethiopia, and widely consumed throughout Northeast Africa. In the late nineteenth century the main cash crop of Harerge was coffee.…

The Sheep Book

A Handbook for the Modern Shepherd, Revised and Updated

By Ron Parker

“The Sheep Book offers a template for both the beginner and the old hand. Mixing theoretical, technical and practical, Parker offers a buffet of tips for any sheep producer.”—Joel Salatin, author of You Can Farm

A Most Promising Weed

A History of Tobacco Farming and Labor in Colonial Zimbabwe, 1890-1945

By Steven C. Rubert

A Most Promising Weed examines the work experience, living conditions, and social relations of thousands of African men, women, and children on European-owned tobacco farms in colonial Zimbabwe from 1890 to 1945.…

Custodians of the Land

Ecology and Culture in the History of Tanzania

Edited by Gregory H. Maddox, James L. Giblin and Isaria N. Kimambo

Farming and pastoral societies inhabit ever-changing environments. This relationship between environment and rural culture, politics and economy in Tanzania is the subject of this volume which will be valuable in reopening debates on Tanzanian history.…

The Migrant Farmer in the History of Cape Colony, 1657–1842

By P. J. van der Merwe

Petrus Johannes Van der Merwe wrote three of the most significant books on the history of South Africa before he was 35 years old. His trilogy, of which The Migrant Farmer is the first volume, has become a classic that no student of Cape colonial history of the seventeenth, eighteenth or nineteenth century can ignore.…