From the Farm to the Table: What All Americans Need to Know about Agriculture

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Overview

In From the Farm to the Table, Gary Holthaus illuminates the state of American agriculture today, particularly the impact of globalization, through the stories of farmers who balance traditional practices with innovative methods to meet market demands. Holthaus demonstrates how the vitality of America's communities is bound to the successes and failures of its farmers. Farmers explain how their lives and communities have changed as they work to create healthy soil, healthy animals, and healthy food in a context ...
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More About This Book

Overview

In From the Farm to the Table, Gary Holthaus illuminates the state of American agriculture today, particularly the impact of globalization, through the stories of farmers who balance traditional practices with innovative methods to meet market demands. Holthaus demonstrates how the vitality of America's communities is bound to the successes and failures of its farmers. Farmers explain how their lives and communities have changed as they work to create healthy soil, healthy animals, and healthy food in a context of ineffective federal policy, growing competition from abroad, public misconceptions regarding government subsidies, the dangers of environmental damage and genetically modified crops, and the myths of modern economics.
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Editorial Reviews

Library Journal
Writer, editor, and poet Holthaus (Wide Skies: Finding a Home in the West), whose published works focus on questions of humankind's place in the landscape, turns his attention to sustainable agriculture in this exploration of the challenges and opportunities of developing an agriculture that will provide food for generations to come. Sponsored by the Minnesota-based Experiment in Rural Cooperation, Holthaus's book tells the story of modern agriculture through engaging interviews with men and women who make a living farming in southeastern Minnesota. In a tone reminiscent of Wendell Berry's A Place on Earth, he examines the far-reaching effects of genetically modified organisms, free-trade agreements that nurture "transnational corporate profit," dependence on fossil fuel-derived chemicals, and the toll all this has taken on the land and farmers. This heavily footnoted volume, one of the first in the new "Culture of the Land" series, will assist those engaged in agricultural policy research. Recommended for academic agriculture collections.
—Sara Rutter
From the Publisher
""With much love, dedication, and diligence, and through interviews with farmers in Minnesota, Holthaus tells the story of today's agriculture... it is not a pretty picture... This book serves an as eye-opener. Highly recommended." —Choice" —

""[Holthaus's] book is a comprehensive look at the context of agriculture today and is valuable for urban readers as well as rural people who want to know where their food comes from and how it is produced." —Dickey County Leader" —

""Rural America is not somehow 'behind us,' a part of a past that is no longer central to our lives. For all of us, Holthaus shows, the thinking of rural people is relevant to the well-being of the nation and far more complex than we have realized. This book provides fresh insight into what is going on in the rural countryside and what farmers themselves have thought about those changes." —Donald Worster, author of Nature's Economy: A History of Ecological Ideas" —

""Farmers all over the world have begun to choose a new path." —Fred Kirschenmann, Distinguished Fellow for the Leopold Center for Sustainable A" —

""His selected interviewees are all compelling studies." —Harvard Book Review" —

""Holthaus is a world-class listener, so much so that he is able to bring us farm stories that enlighten and enrich our sphere of knowledge and understanding of agriculture and all that it encompasses." —Helene Murray, Executive Director, Minnesota Institute for Sustainable Agricultu" —

""Holthaus's book tells the story of modern agriculture through engaging interviews with men and women who make a living farming in southeastern Minnesota. In a tone reminiscent of Wendell Berry's A Place on Earth, he examines the far-reaching effects of genetically modified organisms, free-trade agreements that nurture 'transnational corporate profit,' dependence on fossil fuel-derived chemicals, and the toll all this has taken on the land and farmers... Recommended for academic agriculture collections."—Library Journal" —

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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780813192260
  • Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
  • Publication date: 2/6/2009
  • Series: Culture of the Land
  • Edition description: New Edition
  • Pages: 384
  • Sales rank: 785,488
  • Product dimensions: 5.90 (w) x 8.90 (h) x 1.20 (d)

Meet the Author

Gary Holthaus is the author of several books, including Wide Skies: Finding a Home in the West, Circling Back, and Unexpected Manna.

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgments xi

Introduction xv

Part I In the Beginning

Chapter 1 Fundamentals 3

Chapter 2 Histories 10

Part II Farmers Talking about Farming

Chapter 3 Two Views, One Farm: Vance and Bonnie Haugen 29

Chapter 4 Farming Is a Spiritual Responsibility: Mike Rupprecht 60

Chapter 5 Timelines: Ron Scherbring 64

Chapter 6 The Absolute Last Thing I Ever Dreamed I'd Be Doing: Lonny and Sandy Dietz 76

Chapter 7 I Felt It Was Just the Right Thing to Do: Dennis Rabe 81

Part III Farming in America: Who Cares?

Chapter 8 They Say Eating Is a Moral Issue: Bill McMillin 109

Chapter 9 Farming Connects Us All 118

Part IV It all Works Together, or it Doesn't Work at All

Chapter 10 Agriculture and Community Culture 173

Chapter 11 Farming in Developing Countries 201

Chapter 12 The WTO, NAFTA, CAFTA, and the FTAA 205

Part V Alternative Visions, Hopeful Futures

Chapter 13 Healthy Food, Healthy Economics 247

Chapter 14 Alternatives for Agriculture and the Whole Culture 262

Part VI An Ecology of Hope

Chapter 15 Ours for a Short Time: Peggy Thomas 277

Chapter 16 An Ecology of Hope 281

Notes 309

Sources and Resources 326

Index 351

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Sort by: Showing 1 Customer Reviews

  • Posted December 19, 2009

    more from this reviewer

    Ho Hum What Is Going On

    The book was ho hum for me. I rarely can't finish a book right away. This was one of the ones still sitting on my end table. So I am probably not being totally fair since I have only read half the book. Mr Holthaus spends quite a bit of time describing the farms and countryside a nice color photo here and there would describe it much better. I will finish this book eventually.

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