Description

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This title includes a number of Open Access chapters.

This important compilation presents an in-depth view spanning past values and practices, present understandings, and potential futures, and covering a range of concrete case studies on sustainable development of organic agriculture. The book explores the very different facets of organic and sustainable agriculture.

Part I of this book delves into the ways that people have approached organic agriculture in sociological, scientific, and economic terms. Part II looks ahead to the future of organic agriculture, presenting opportunities for further progress. Part III consists of an extensive bibliography chronologically developing the progress of organic and sustainable agriculture over two thousand years.

The book

Studies the cultural dimension of organic consumption

Presents how sustainable agriculture can reduce and mitigate the impact of climate change on crop production

Looks at the impact of agriculture on both famine and rural poverty in an ecofriendly and socially inclusive manner

Examines six of the oldest grain-crop-based organic comparison experiments in the US, looking at the environmental and economic outcomes from organic agroecosystems, to both producers and policymakers

Reviews the role of experimentation and innovation in developing sustainable organic agriculture

Looks at the challenges of organic farmers

Discusses ways to ensure sustainability and resilience of farming

Looks at ways to change the mindset of farmers especially in traditional farming communities

Explores the development of organic and sustainable agriculture through more than 500 years, ending with the early twenty-first century.

Altogether, the chapters provide a nuanced look at the development of organic and sustainable agriculture, with the conclusion that organic is not enough to be sustainable.

About the Author

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Kim Etingoff has a Tufts University's terminal master's degree in Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning. Her recent experience includes researching with Initiative for a Competitive Inner City a report on food resiliency within the city of Boston. She worked in partnership with Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative and Alternatives for Community and Environment to support a community food-planning process based in a Boston neighborhood, which was oriented toward creating a vehicle for community action around urban food issues, providing extensive background research to ground the resident-led planning process. She has worked in the Boston Mayor's Office of New Urban Mechanics, and has also coordinated and developed programs in urban agriculture and nutrition education. In addition, she has many years of experience researching, writing, and editing educational and academic books on environmental and food issues.