A comprehensive compilation of entries illuminates the key trends, activities, and themes in organic, sustainable, and local food, covering consumers, organizations, farming, policies, and much more. The Encyclopedia of Organic, Sustainable, and Local Food pulls together a fascinating array of diverse, interdisciplinary topics to provide a thorough overview of our current alternative food system. With increasing attention focused on organic and local food, many people are attracted to these sustainable food choices. Yet despite its popularity, there are misconceptions and a general lack of understanding about organic and local food. This encyclopedia illuminates social concerns, economic trends, policy influences, and ecological terms to provide a comprehensive overview. Contributions from expert authors from government agencies, research universities, and private organizations provide key information on each of these relevant topics. Eating is a basic human activity, yet many people do not know where their food comes from. This book helps readers fill the gap between the trendy and the factual.

More than 1,500 alphabetically arranged entries provide information and advice on basic elements of organic gardening and on the identification, cultivation, and use of specific fruits, grains, nuts, vegetables, and ornamental plants.

Organic Food and Farming: A Reference Handbook is a valuable resource for students and general readers curious about the history, evolution, and growth of the organic food movement. Organic Food and Farming: A Reference Handbook begins with a deep dive into the origins of organic farming, offering a clear discussion of what constitutes organic production and how that has changed over time. Next, the volume provides a comprehensive overview of growth of organics as both an industry and a social movement and the inherent challenges that occur from trying to be both. The book additionally covers controversial issues and challenges, along with good news about what is working and what is possible. Included are essays by scholars, farmers, and experts working with NGOs as well as profiles of key people and organizations in the organic sector. Additional chapters include data and documents, a comprehensive resource list, and a detailed chronology of the key events in the history of the organic sector. Distinguishing it from others that laud or dismiss organic food and farming practices is this book's objective nature, which allows it to be used as a definitive resource on the topic.

Rodale's Ultimate Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening has been the go-to resource for gardeners for more than 50 years, and the best tool novices can buy to start applying organic methods to their fruit and vegetable crops, herbs, trees and shrubs, perennials, annuals, and lawns. This thoroughly revised and updated version highlights new organic pest controls, new fertilizer products, improved gardening techniques, the latest organic soil practices, and new trends in garden design. In this indispensable work you will find: • Comprehensive coverage for the entire garden and landscape along with related entries such as Community Gardening, Edible Landscaping, Horticultural Therapy, Stonescaping, and more • The most in-depth information from the trusted Rodale Organic Gardening brand • A completely new section on earth-friendly techniques for gardening in a changing climate, covering wise water management, creating backyard habitats, managing invasive plants and insects, reducing energy use and recycling, and understanding biotechnology • Entries all written by American gardeners for American gardeners, with answers for all the challenges presented by various conditions, from the humid Deep South and the mild maritime coasts to the cold far North and the dry Southwest Rodale's Ultimate Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening has everything you need to create gorgeous, non-toxic gardens in any part of the country.

There are twenty million acres of lawns in North America. In their current form, these unproductive expanses of grass represent a significant financial and environmental cost. However, viewed through a different lens, they can also be seen as a tremendous source of opportunity. Access to land is a major barrier for many people who want to enter the agricultural sector, and urban and suburban yards have huge potential for would-be farmers wanting to become part of this growing movement. The Urban Farmer is a comprehensive, hands-on, practical manual to help you learn the techniques and business strategies you need to make a good living growing high-yield, high-value crops right in your own backyard (or someone else's). Major benefits include: Low capital investment and overhead costs Reduced need for expensive infrastructure Easy access to markets Growing food in the city means that fresh crops may travel only a few blocks from field to table, making this innovative approach the next logical step in the local food movement. Based on a scalable, easily reproduced business model, The Urban Farmer is your complete guide to minimizing risk and maximizing profit by using intensive production in small leased or borrowed spaces. Curtis Stone is the owner/operator of Green City Acres, a commercial urban farm growing vegetables for farmers markets, restaurants, and retail outlets. During his slower months, Curtis works as a public speaker, teacher, and consultant, sharing his story to inspire a new generation of farmers.

This Encyclopedia offers a definitive source on issues pertaining to the full range of topics in the important new area of food and agricultural ethics. It includes summaries of historical approaches, current scholarship, social movements, and new trends from the standpoint of the ethical notions that have shaped them. It combines detailed analyses of specific topics such as the role of antibiotics in animal production, the Green Revolution, and alternative methods of organic farming, with longer entries that summarize general areas of scholarship and explore ways that they are related. Renewed debate, discussion and inquiry into food and agricultural topics have become a hallmark of the turn toward more sustainable policies and lifestyles in the 21st century. Attention has turned to the goals and ethical rationale behind production, distribution and consumption of food, as well as to non-food uses of cultivated biomass and the products of animal husbandry. These wide-ranging debates encompass questions in human nutrition, animal rights and the environmental impacts of aquaculture and agricultural production. Each of these and related topics is both technically complex and involves an – often implicit – ethical dimension. Other topics include methods for integrating ethics into scientific and technical research programs or development projects, the role of intensive agriculture and biotechnology in addressing persistent world hunger and the role of crops, forests and engineered organisms in making a transition to renewable, carbon-neutral sources of energy. The Encyclopedia of Food and Agricultural Ethics proves an indispensible reference point for future research and writing on topics in agriculture and food ethics for decades to come.