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  • From: jdt AT itol.com
  • To: Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Two Books in One Review!
  • Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2004 10:48:56 -0600

Dorene,
Can I reprint your reviews in our next organizational newsletter? - Jill
Bussiere, Wisconsin


Quoting Alliums <garlicgrower AT earthlink.net>:

> Hi, Folks!
>
> I received these two books at the same time and they were so similar that
> it seemed to make sense to review them together. If you'd like to use the
> review, let me know -- I retain copyright. I'll never get rich this way,
> but my fame continues throughout the nation! :-D
>
> Dorene
>
> ***************************************************
>
> Bringing the Food Economy Home: Local Alternatives to Global Agribusiness
> by Helena Norberg-Hodge, Todd Merrifield and Steven Gorelick, Zed Books,
> 2002. ISBN: 1-56549-146-7, 140 pages.
>
> Civic Agriculture: Re-connecting Farm, Food and Community by Thomas Lyson,
> University Press of New England, 2004. ISBN: 1-58465-414-7, 136 pages.
>
> “But Still Try – For Who Knows What Is Possible” --- Michael Faraday
>
> Like most science majors at Ursinus College, I read these words inscribed
> above the doorway of Pfaler Hall as I entered for biweekly tests and
> all-consuming finals. Few of us, even today, could identify Faraday by his
> portrait, but almost all of us have found that his value of simply plugging
> away at one’s calling in the face of an uncertain future applies equally
> well to the student struggling to pass organic chemistry or the adult
> attempting to make a living by “non-traditional” means – especially those
> of us called to organic gardening/sustainable agriculture.
>
> Although Bringing the Food Economy Home and Civic Agriculture were
> published two years apart, the history they chronicle – the rise of global
> agribusiness, its stunning success in economic terms, its hidden failures
> in ecological, food safety and rural life issues and the current rise of an
> “agriculture of place” or “civic agriculture” to remedy those failures – is
> pretty much the same. Both books explain how the Industrial Revolution
> accelerated a trend to transform agriculture from a locally-sufficient
> economy based on home-produced goods and services traded with neighbors to
> a few cash-based commodity corporations dependent on maximum profits for
> stockholders. Both books also explain the farmers’ markets, community
> support agriculture (CSA), “buy local” campaigns, community gardens, food
> co-opts and other local structures that have arisen to counter the concerns
> many have with the current corporate global food system.
>
> For those who prefer the really big picture, Bringing the Food Economy
> Home, written by International Society for Ecology and Culture (ISEC)
> staffers based in the UK, concentrates on the global implications of a
> corporate food system and provides examples from both First and Third World
> countries. While several US essays are included, many of the photos,
> charts and accompanying stories explaining familiar concepts are from
> sources that will be new to most US readers. The book also includes
> extensive endnotes, a decent index, a chart of US and UK measurements and a
> resource guide of organizations to consult or join.
>
> Civic Agriculture is part of the Tuft University series Civil
> Society: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives. The focus, therefore,
> is more on US social history and how community-based agriculture increases
> social capital. As Lyson, the author, is based at Cornell University, he
> provides an excellent historical context on how Northeast growers, who
> traditionally sold their products in local urban markets, have been able to
> resist somewhat (relative to the MidWest and far West farmers and ranchers)
> the pressures to “go corporate” and in the current century, preserve their
> land by embracing CSAs, farmers’ markets and other forms of civic
> agriculture.
>
> And yet, buried beneath the earnest arguments about how growers and
> consumers alike can prosper through local food systems, both books admit
> that all these local efforts are barely making a dent (between 2 to 4% of
> food industry revenues) in global agribusiness’ economic clout and access
> to power to maintain that clout. As Lyson states:
>
> “Civic agriculture does not currently represent an economic challenge to
> the conventional agriculture and food industry and it is unlikely to pose a
> challenge anytime soon. However, it does include some innovative ways to
> produce, process and distribute food. And it represents a sustainable
> alternative to the socially, economically and environmentally destructive
> practices that have come to be associated with conventional agriculture.”
>
> In other words, to those of us who strive to make a living in sustainable
> agriculture: “But still try, for who knows what is possible.”
>
> Reviewed by Dorene Pasekoff, Coordinator
> St. John’s United Church of Christ Organic Community Garden
> Phoenixville, PA
>
>



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