Deep Agroecology: Farms, Food, and Our Future

by Steven McFadden

Overview

The ways we farm and the ways we eat will determine the destiny of life on earth.

Farms and food are foundational for civilization. Right now our civilization is undergoing massive upheaval. We must build a new foundation, and that imperative task is going to take all of us. Deep Agroecology shows the way.

The union of native wisdom ways with sophisticated, sustainable tools and practices can lead to the renewal and the elevation of all forms of life on Earth. Our next, necessary evolutionary step depends on spiritually intelligent, regenerative agriculture: deep agroecology.

Agroecology is an ecological approach to growing food and fiber that appreciates farms and orchards as ecosystems. Internationally, agroecology is increasingly recognized as an approach capable of meeting productivity goals while replenishing the soil, sequestering climate destabilizing CO2, and striving toward justice for all the human beings and animals in the food system.

Deep agroecology arises from recognition that the way we farm will determine the destiny of life on the earth. This inescapable reality necessarily involves every human being.

While deep agroecology is new territory, it's natural territory, and we'd be wise to engage it wholeheartedly.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781792309281
Publisher:	Light and Sound Press, LLC
Publication date:	09/13/2019
Pages:	294
Product dimensions:	5.25(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.62(d)

About the Author

Independent journalist Steven McFadden has been writing about the Earth, farms, and food for decades. With Trauger Groh, he is coauthor of the first two books on Community Supported Agriculture (CSA): Farms of Tomorrow: Community Supported Farms, Farm Supported Communities (1990) and Farms of Tomorrow Revisited (1998). He's also the author of The Call of the Land: An Agrarian Primer for the 21st Century and Awakening Community Intelligence: CSA Farms as 21st Century Cornerstones.He is the author of a contemporary epic, nonfiction saga of North America that is freely available online: Odyssey of the 8th Fire (www.8thfire.net). It tells a true story arising from the deepest roots of our land but taking place in the present and the future. In it, circles upon circles, elders of the Americas make a generous giveaway of the teachings they carry. Steven served as the national coordinator for the annual 1993 Earth Day Celebration. In partnership with the Seventh Generation Fund,

Editorial Reviews

2019-11-23
Journalist McFadden (Classical Considerations, 2018, etc.) examines the state of current American farming methods and presents "deep agroecology" as the answer to a broken food system.

The way that most of the country approaches farming is not sustainable, according to the author; widespread pesticide use, genetically engineered seeds, and factory farms all contribute to the rapid loss of valuable topsoil and to fragile ecosystems. And with a worldwide epidemic of pollution contributing to climate change, he notes, the state of our food system is more precarious than ever. Enter deep agroecology, a revolutionary approach to farming and food that, the author asserts, has the potential to heal the planet before it's too late. He defines it as an approach to farming and food that is "clean, sustainable, humane, egalitarian, and just, rooted in ecology, other sciences, and indigenous knowledge." In this book, he hopes to present a general overview of his concept while also offering concrete examples of deep agroecology in action. He does so in several ways, including discussions of the history of agrarian idealism, and detailed reports and statistics on the damage done by modern farming and explanations of how it came to be the dominant form of production. Because deep agroecology draws on a combination of science and ancient wisdom, it also highlights how many indigenous cultures have, for centuries, recognized the importance of strong, healthy communities, and how they're dependent on the planet on which they live. Overall, McFadden puts forth a convincing case that farms are the basis of civilization, and that if humanity is to survive, it must pursue different principles and a new philosophy. McFadden is an independent journalist who's authored several books on a range of subjects, and his prose is always clear and easy to understand. Although he covers a lot of material, he does so successfully by consistently returning to familiar themes and arguments, as when he repeatedly points out how most people lack a spiritual connection with the planet, which has had a profound impact on their awareness of environmental problems.

An enlightening work of ecological thought.

Kirkus Reviews