"Brings the business planning process alive to help today's agriculture entrepreneurs transform farm-grown inspiration into profitable enterprises. Sample worksheets illustrate how real farm families set goals, research processing alternatives, determine potential markets, and evaluate financing options. Blank worksheets offer readers the opportunity to develop their own detailed, lender-ready business plan and map out strategies" --back cover.

First published in 1998, this book provides a broad but in-depth description of the issues, concepts, methods of analysis, and empirical results related to the sustainable development of agriculture and rural communities. Specifically, it examines the relationships between sustainability and individual topics such as technology, information, population, gender, land use, community, and public policy. A unique aspect of this book is that the topics addressed have not previously been explored together in one publication. With sustainability as the common link, data and evidence are presented and then interpreted in light of individual perspective and experience, in the process advancing our knowledge of this important field. The book comprises of 12 chapters written by prominent authors who come from government and non-government organizations as well as from various academic institutions and disciplines. This book is ideal for a seminar course. It is particularly intended for students in production agriculture, rural sociology, economics and public policy, environmental sciences, geography and land use planning, and other social sciences. Its rich insights make it a useful source of information for policy makers. It can also be used as a reference by professional economists and other researchers interested in issues relating to sustainable agricultural and rural development. While the coverage of some topics is, by necessity, more technical, the book is compiled with a general audience in mind. Thus, it should be of interest to anyone concerned with agriculture, natural resources and rural issues, particularly as they relate to the future of agriculture and of rural communities.

In a neo-liberal era where society in the Developed World is reliant on mass-produced cheap foods, and living standards are based on high consumption of non-renewable energy and materials, this book investigates the growing significance of sustainable systems in rural areas. Drawing on a wide range of topical case studies, primarily in the UK, it provides an in-depth analysis of the progress made towards sustainability within rural systems, focusing specifically upon sustainable agriculture and sustainable rural communities. The authors provide an overview of the various systems of sustainability currently being applied in the Developed World. They highlight key environmental, economic and social issues, including post-productivism, 'alternative' food networks, organic farming, GM foods, conservation, rural development programmes, sustainable tourism, local training schemes and community participation. The various studies provide important lessons in the ongoing search for greater sustainability and suggest positive directions for future policy practice.

This book examines the interaction of the dimensions of economy, society, and environment in the context of rural systems. It embraces a wide range of topics, including globalization and reregulation in sustainable food production, conservation and sustainability, the development of sustainable rural communities, and sustainable rural-urban interaction. It is relevant to advanced-level students, teachers, researchers, policymakers and agency workers.

This book brings together several systems-level approaches to the consideration of the interaction of livelihood choices, natural resource management and participatory action research on sustainable development. By focusing on these approaches to community change, the volume hopes to encourage readers to consider how they might adopt methods such as Sustainable Livelihoods Approach (SLA), Community Capitals Framework (CCF) and Participatory Action Research (PAR) in their own research, practice and teaching. Thus, this volume will engage readers in reflection about the importance of systems-level approaches that address poverty from the perspective of the poor, natural resource management that maintains the resource for future generations, and the engagement of local people in designing and implementing, and thus owning, strategies that address equity as well as economic security and the environment. This book was originally published as a special issue of Community Development.

Rural communities in Japan have suffered from significant depopulation and economic downturn in post-war years. Low birth rates, aging populations, agricultural decline and youth migration to large cities have been compounded by the triple disaster of 11 March 2011, which destroyed farming and fishing communities and left thousands of people homeless. This book identifies these challenges and acknowledges that an era of post-growth has arrived in Japan. Through exploring new forms of regional employment, community empowerment, and reverse migration, the authors address potential opportunities and benefits that may help to create and ensure the quality of life in depopulating areas and post-disaster scenarios. This book will be of interest not only to students of Japanese society, but also to those outside of Japan who are seeking new approaches for tackling depopulation challenges.

Environmental activism in rural places frequently pits residents whose livelihood depends on resource extraction against those who seek to protect natural spaces and species. While many studies have focused on women who seek to protect the natural environment, few have explored the perspectives of women who seek to maintain resource use. This book goes beyond the dichotomies of "pro" and "anti" environmentalism to tell the stories of these women. Maureen Reed uses participatory action research to explain the experiences of women who seek to protect forestry as an industry, a livelihood, a community, and a culture. She links their experiences to policy making by considering the effects of environmental policy changes on the social dynamics of workplaces, households, and communities in forestry towns of British Columbia's temperate rainforest. The result is a critical commentary about the social dimensions of sustainability in rural communities. A powerful and challenging book, Taking Stands provides a crucial understanding of community change in resource-dependent regions, and helps us to better tackle the complexities of gender and activism as they relate to rural sustainability. Social and environmental geographers, feminist scholars, and those engaged in rural studies, environmental sustainability, and community planning will find it invaluable.

Sustainable Livelihoods and Rural Development looks at the role of social institutions and the politics of policy, as well as issues of identity, gender and generation. The relationships between sustainability and livelihoods are examined, and livelihoods analysis situated within a wider political economy of environmental and agrarian change.

There has been a recent expansion of interest in cultural approaches to rural communities and to the economic and social situation of rurality more broadly. This interest has been particularly prominent in Australia in recent years, spurring the emergence of an interdisciplinary field called 'rural cultural studies'. This collection is framed by a large interdisciplinary research project that is part of that emergence, particularly focused on what the idea of 'cultural sustainability' might mean for understanding experiences of growth, decline, change and heritage in small Australian country towns. However, it extends beyond the initial parameters of that research, bringing together a range of senior and emerging Australian researchers who offer diverse approaches to rural culture. The essays collected here explore the diverse forms that rural cultural studies might take and how these intersect with other disciplinary approaches, offering a uniquely diverse but also careful account of life in country Australia. Yet, in its emphasis on the simultaneous specificity and cross-cultural recognisability of rural communities, this book also outlines a field of inquiry and a set of critical strategies that are more broadly applicable to thinking about the "rural" in the early twenty-first century. This book will be valuable reading for students and academics of Geography, History, Literary Studies, Cultural Studies, Anthropology and Sociology, introducing rural cultural studies as a new dynamic and integrative discipline.

This book critically examines different forms of urban-rural links for sustainable development in different countries. As intertwined processes of globalization, digitalization, environmental challenges and the search for sustainable development continue, rural and urban areas around the world become increasingly interconnected and interdependent. This book contributes to understanding the role of this growing interconnectedness from an economic geographical perspective. It does so by theoretically and empirically addressing the various existing linkages, such as food networks, value chains, and regional governance at local, regional, national and international levels. In doing so, contributions extend and contrast existing approaches dealing with urban and rural areas separately by considering the interplay between these two as well as their consequences for sustainability transition pathways. This edited volume adds to the academic and policy debate by bringing together a variety of concepts and themes in order to shift the research and policy agenda away from simple dichotomy to different notions of rural-urban linkages. Offering multidisciplinary insights into rural-urban linkages, the book will be of interest to decision-makers, practitioners and researchers in the fields of economic geography, regional planning, food studies and economics.