At a time early in the twenty-first century when the nature and future of British farming is very much a matter of public debate, this volume presents an up-to-date overview of the subject between one and two thousand years ago. Its importance lies in providing an authoritative and scholarly synthesis of a great deal of research--environmental, archaeological and historical --which cumulatively makes a significant shift in the understanding of Britain and its farming peoples, of the British landscape and of farming itself.

Farmland wildlife has been decimated by intensive crop growing using pesticides, grubbing up hedges, ploughing heathland and draining marshes, etc. With too many sheep grazing our moors, hills and mountains, a range of upland plants, invertebrates and birds has been diminished and the land converted to closely-grazed turf, perfect for heavy rain to cause catastrophic downstream floods. Once common farmland birds have declined by 54% since 1970 with farmland invertebrates declining by 40% in a few decades. Since the 1930s a staggering 97% of our once flower-rich meadows has been lost. Ploughing a New Furrow examines these stark figures and in the context of Brexit considers the unprecedented opportunity for wildlife once again to be nurtured by Britain's farmers alongside food production, reversing the enormous plant and animal losses our farmland has suffered. With its financial largesse, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) has encouraged farmers to destroy huge areas of wildlife habitat in Britain's lowlands and seriously damage large tracts of our uplands, depleting Britain's farmed land of much of its wildlife. With responsibility for farm policy to be transferred back to the UK, these enormous losses could be reversed and Britain's farms made wildlife-rich once more. This book is based to a significant extent on conversations with farmers and on the achievements and experiences of some farmers who have made good use of agri-environment payments to reinstate lost habitats and manage their remaining wildlife more sensitively. The author sets out the case for removing or capping subsidies, supporting organic and other more sustainable forms of agriculture and the conservation of soils and the rich life forms they hold. He proposes a set of policy changes and other measures that should be adopted by the Government post-Brexit to make the 70% of our land that farming occupies rich in wildlife again. Literally food for thought!

Locally grown produce and specialty farm products are finding eager new customers every season. Farmers' markets sprout up every spring, luring tourists and locals with pasture-raised meats, organic vegetables and fruit, artisanal cheeses, and a seemingly endless assortment of baked goods, handmade condiments, and craft items. Restaurants and grocery stores feature products from regional farms with pride. And direct-to-consumer marketing and selling is a reality for every farmer with an Internet connection.
To help farmers position themselves well for the opportunities afforded by today's market, Sarah Aubrey, a successful farm-based business owner, shares her years of research and firsthand experience in "Starting & Running Your Own Small Farm Business," Here is everything readers need to know about launching a small agricultural enterprise, from initial start-up to consumer marketing. Begin by fine-tuning that bright idea into a viable business plan, and then learn how to go out and sell it. Secure financing, work out the legalities, follow the proper USDA guidelines, and a farming business is born. Aubrey explains every step of the process and even includes samples of the required forms.
Every small farmer must also become a skilled salesperson and marketing professional. Aubrey runs through all the selling options -- from rural farmstands to Web sites to food service wholesalers -- and explains the pros and cons of each. She also explains how to create and stick with an advertising budget, how to develop pricing strategies, and the importance of personal asset protection.
Aubrey brings her business advice to life with profiles of farmers successfully crafting and sellingeverything from small batches of wine to exotic animals such as elk and alpacas. Their stories are minicourses in successful farming, sure to inspire every reader.

Bruce Campbell's book, first published in 2000, was the first single-authored treatment of medieval English agriculture at a national scale. It deals comprehensively with the cultivation carried out by or for lords on their demesne farms, for which the documentation is more detailed and abundant than for any other agricultural group either during the medieval period or later. A context is thereby assured for all future work on the medieval and early modern agrarian economies. The book also makes a substantive contribution to ongoing historical debates about the dimensions, chronology and causes of the medieval cycle of expansion, crisis and contraction. Topics dealt with include the scale and composition of seigniorial estates, the geography of land-use, pastoral husbandry, arable husbandry, land productivity, levels of commercialization and the size of the population in relation to the consumption of food at any given time.

In Colombia, decades of social and armed conflict and the US-led war on drugs have created a seemingly untenable situation for scientists and rural communities as they attempt to care for forests and grow non-illicit crops. In Vital Decomposition Kristina M. Lyons presents an ethnography of human-soil relations. She follows state soil scientists and peasants across labs, greenhouses, forests, and farms and attends to the struggles and collaborations between farmers, agrarian movements, state officials, and scientists over the meanings of peace, productivity, rural development, and sustainability in Colombia. In particular, Lyons examines the practices and philosophies of rural farmers who value the decomposing layers of leaves, which make the soils that sustain life in the Amazon, and shows how the study and stewardship of the soil point to alternative frameworks for living and dying. In outlining the life-making processes that compose and decompose into soil, Lyons theorizes how life can thrive in the face of the violence, criminalization, and poisoning produced by militarized, growth-oriented development.

Water-Energy-Food Nexus Narratives and Resource Securities: A Global South Perspective provides a knowledge synthesis on the water-energy-food (WEF) nexus, focusing primarily on the global south. By presenting concepts, analytical tools, and case studies, the book serves as a practical resource for researchers, policymakers, and practitioners in sustainability and functional roles across all three sectors. It addresses key issues related to data availability, tools, indices, metrics, and application across multiple scales, beginning with a summary of existing knowledge. Finally, it examines the WEF nexus, presents global insights, and discusses future considerations and implications. This book presents an overview of existing knowledge on the WEF nexus and examines how such research aligns with emerging global WEF nexus perspectives, making it ideal for professionals, government entities, private industry, and the general public.

In Working with the Curlew Trevor Robinson shares his enthusiasm and joy for his work as a shepherd on the moor at Great Whernside in Yorkshire and later as a farmhand near Leominster in Hereford: "A lovely environment, very busy and hard work with no lorries, no electric motors, no tractors, just nature's own sounds." He celebrates the intricate details of traditional farm life: selling rabbits at tuppence each, the village hop, sheep shearing, lambing, shire horses, haymaking, the warm welcome taste of tea on a snow-bound moor, muck spreading, cheese and bread making, trout-tickling, and killing the pig, a quiet job well done. During one severe Yorkshire winter six hundred sheep were lost, and he had to leave the job he loved, 'the call of the curlew was still over two months away, when it came I was not there to hear it'. His new job in Herefordshire brought different skills: hedge laying, ploughing matches, haymaking, chain harrowing and crop rotation, and inevitably, the arrival of tractor and combine harvester.

The later Middle Ages was an overwhelmingly rural world, with probably three out of four households reliant upon farming for a living. Yet conventional accounts of the period rarely do justice to the variety of ways in which the land was managed and worked. The thirteen essays collected in this volume draw upon the abundant documentary evidence of the period to explore that diversity. In the process they engage with the issue of classification - without which effective generalisation is impossible - and offer a series of solutions to that particularly thorny methodological challenge. Only through systematic and objective classification is it possible to differentiate between and map different field systems, husbandry types, and land-use categories. That, in turn, makes it possible to consider and evaluate the relative roles of soils and topography, institutional structures, and commercialised market demand in shaping farm enterprise both during the period of mounting population before the Black Death and the long era of demographic decline that followed it. What emerges is an agrarian world more commercialised, differentiated, and complex than is usually appreciated, whose institutional and agronomic contours shaped the course of agricultural development for centuries to come.

This book examines environmental sustainability and inclusive economic growth, providing in-depth analysis of foreign direct investment (FDI) in large-scale agriculture in Ethiopia. In most African states, arable land and other natural resources play a pivotal role for economic growth and development. Ethiopia is one of those countries where agriculture is the backbone of the economy. This sector has also been an attraction for FDI in Sub-Saharan Africa since the global food and financial crisis of 2007 and 2008. This book uses six foreign investments in large-scale agriculture as case studies to examine current Ethiopian policies, the patterns of investment they promote, how these impact on land-based resources and communities' wellbeing. Presenting analyses of the economic, social and political realities of foreign direct investment in the local context, Foreign Direct Investment in Large-Scale Agriculture in Africa discusses how the fundamental principles of pro-poor and environmentally sustainable investments intersect with the government's ambition to advance Ethiopia's development agenda. This book will be of interest to scholars and students of African economics and sustainable development, African policy makers, intergovernmental organisations as well as multilateral and bilateral development partners.

Joining of Materials and Structures is the first and only complete and highly readable treatment of the options for joining conventional materials and the structures they comprise in conventional and unconventional ways, and for joining emerging materials and structures in novel ways. Joining by mechanical fasteners, integral designed-or formed-in features, adhesives, welding, brazing, soldering, thermal spraying, and hybrid processes are addressed as processes and technologies, as are issues associated with the joining of metals, ceramics (including cement and concrete) glass, plastics, and composites (including wood), as well as, for the first time anywhere, living tissue.
While focused on materials issues, issues related to joint design, production processing, quality assurance, process economics, and joint performance in service are not ignored. The book is written for engineers, from an in-training student to a seasoned practitioner by an engineer who chose to teach after years of practice. By reading and referring to this book, the solutions to joining problems will be within one s grasp.
Key Features:
.Unprecedented coverage of all joining options (from lashings to lasers) in 10 chapters
.Uniquely complete coverage of all materials, including living tissues, in 6 chapters
.Richly illustrated with 76 photographs and 233 illustrations or plots
.Practice Questions and Problems for use as a text of for reviewing to aid for comprehension
* Coverage all of major joining technologies, including welding, soldering, brazing, adhesive and cement bonding, pressure fusion, riveting, bolting, snap-fits, and more
* Organized by both joining techniques and materials types, including metals, non-metals, ceramics and glasses, composites, biomaterials, and living tissue
* An ideal reference for design engineers, students, package and product designers, manufacturers, machinists, materials scientists"

Written by leading academics and practitioners in the field, Smart Villages in the EU and Beyond offers a detailed insight into issues and developments that shape the debate on smart villages, together with concepts, developments and policymaking initiatives including the EU Action for Smart Villages. This book derives from the realization that the implications of the increasing depopulation of rural areas across the EU is a pending disaster. This edited collection establishes a framework for action today, which will lead to sustainable revitalization of rural areas tomorrow. Using country-specific case studies, the chapters examine how integrated and ICT-conscious strategies and policy actions focused on wellbeing, sustainability and solidarity could provide a long-term solution in the revitalization of villages across the EU and elsewhere. Best practices pertinent to precision farming, energy diversification, tourism, entrepreneurship are discussed in detail. As an in-depth exploration of the Smart Village on a multinational scale, this book will serve as an indispensable resource for students, researchers and policy leaders in the fields of politics, strategic management and urban and rural studies.

This 1997 book describes the spread of new agricultural practice in the half millennium after 1350, and reconstructs a neglected part of Europe's agricultural past: the introduction of fodder crops, and the continuous reorganisation of traditional botanical inputs within a new system of farming. New agricultural systems, based on convertible husbandry, clovers, turnips and roots, were introduced to some areas of Europe from the 1750s, and gave new impetus to productivity. However this so-called 'agricultural revolution' had demanded a learning process in which recourse to ancient and medieval botany helped farmers and scholars to overcome a situation of stalemate in early modern technology. The book breaks entirely new ground by showing the distant historical origins of a major transformation in land potential and farm productivity. A vast range of evidence is cited from Italy, France, England and elsewhere to provide a history of the 'agricultural revolution' in Europe.

All civilisations, ancient and modern, are founded on agriculture. In this fascinating account of one of the most fundamental aspects of humankind's march from prehistory to the present day, the author considers the evidence for the origins and evolution of agriculture in various parts of the world; a balanced view is presented based on the archaeology, botany, genetics, ecology and anthropology of domesticates and their wild relatives. The basic agricultural systems which emerged from areas yielding traces of the earliest plant and animal domestication are described, and their drastic modification in recent times is considered. In a concluding chapter the present situation is reviewed, and the possible risks of a system which now relies on a relatively small number of species to supply the majority of our food are discussed.

Agricultural geography changed dramatically during the last decades of the 20th century, reflecting the transformation of the farming industry itself. This text embraces these changes, applying ideas and methods from contemporary social science, as it moves beyond farm-based production to address current issues affecting the production and consumption of food and fibre throughout the world. processes, integration of agriculture into the wider agri-food system, concern with attaining sustainable production systems, and the importance of both government and supra-government policies. Examples are drawn from North America, Western Europe and the developing world. Key issues addressed include: the globalisation of agricultural production; the growing importance of supermarkets and fast-food outlets; the changing nature of government regulation; the persistence of hunger and famine in parts of the developing world; and attempts to develop sustainable agricultural systems using biotechnology. The book should appeal especially to Geography students, but should also be of interest to a broader range of students in sociology, economics and development studies, and anyone interested in agriculture, food production and consumption, and rural development.

Onshore unconventional gas operations, in most jurisdictions, operate on the legal principle that all activities during exploration and extraction are 'temporary' in nature. The concept that the onshore unconventional gas industry has a temporary effect on the land on which it operates creates a regulatory paradox. On one hand, unconventional gas activities create energy security, national wealth and a bourgeoning export industry. On the other, agricultural land and agriculturalists may be significantly disadvantaged by unconventional gas activities potentially producing permanent damage to non-renewable fertile soils and spoiling the underground water tables. Thus, threatening future food security and food sovereignty. This book explores the socio-regulatory dimensions of coexistence between agricultural and onshore unconventional gas land uses in the jurisdictions with the highest concentration of proven unconventional gas reserves - Australia, Canada, the USA, the UK, France, Poland and China. In exploring the differing regulatory standpoints of unconventional gas land uses on productive farming land in the chosen jurisdictions, this book provides an original three-part categorisation of regulatory approaches addressing the coexistence of agricultural land and unconventional gas namely: adaptive management, precautionary and, finally, statism. It offers a timely and topical approach to socio-legal natural resource governance theory based on the participation, transparency and empowerment for agricultural landholders, examining how differing frameworks such as the collective bargaining framework can create equitable and sustainable contractual arrangements with unconventional gas companies.

The history of humankind is intimately tied to the history of agriculture: powerful societies rose, persisted and waned in parallel with their food supply systems. Describing what crops were grown, the constraints on their production and the foods that were obtained, this book traces the impact of cropping and food preparation in ten societies that were among the most powerful and influential in history, detailing how technology varied and developed as it related directly to agriculture and food production. The book covers the background of agricultural development, early agricultural societies, and the advancement of technology from the ancient Greeks and Romans to the present. It finishes by addressing the implications for the future of agriculture and food supply as grain production moves towards biofuels. A compelling text for all those interested in the history of society and civilisations, global agriculture, and what it means for the future, this text is also an essential reference for students of agriculture, food technology, history and anthropology.

Food - how it's grown, how it's shared - makes us who we are. This issue traces the connections between farm and food, between humus and human. According to the first book of the Bible, tending the earth was humankind's first task: "The Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he had formed" (Gen. 2:8). The desire to get one's hands dirty raising one's own food, then, doesn't just come from modern romanticism, but is built into human nature. The title, "The Welcome Table," comes from a spiritual first sung by enslaved African-Americans. The song refers to the Bible's closing scene, the wedding feast of the Lamb described in the Book of Revelation, to which every race, tribe, and tongue are invited - a divine pledge of a day of freedom and freely shared plenty, of earth renewed and humanity restored. In the case of food, the symbol is the substance. Every meal, if shared generously and with radical hospitality, is already now a taste of the feast to come. Also in this issue: poetry by Luci Shaw; reviews of books by Julia Child, Robert Farrar Capon, Peter Mayle, Albert Woodfox, and Maria von Trapp; and art by Michael Naples, Sieger Koeder, Carl Juste, Andre Chung, Angel Bracho, Winslow Homer, Raymond Logan, Sybil Andrews, Cameron Davidson, and Jason Landsel. Plough Quarterly features stories, ideas, and culture for people eager to put their faith into action. Each issue brings you in-depth articles, interviews, poetry, book reviews, and art to help you put Jesus' message into practice and find common cause with others.

The third edition of this popular introductory text maintains the character that won worldwide respect for its predecessors but features a number of enhancements that broaden its scope, increase its utility, and bring the treatment thoroughly up to date. It provides complete coverage of the statistical ideas and methods essential to students in agriculture or experimental biology. In addition to covering fundamental methodology, this treatment also includes more advanced topics that the authors believe help develop an appreciation of the breadth of statistical methodology now available. The emphasis is not on mathematical detail, but on ensuring students understand why and when various methods should be used.


New in the Third Edition:

· A chapter on the two simplest yet most important methods of multivariate analysis
· Increased emphasis on modern computer applications
· Discussions on a wider range of data types and the graphical display of data
· Analysis of mixed cropping experiments and on-farm experiments

Small Farms Can Equal Big Pay!

Choose the right products, process and market them effectively, and you too can join the ranks of top-earning farmers, some of whom gross nearly $100,000 per acre. Whether you're buying a new farm or jump-starting an old one, Ron Macher's down-to-earth advice on planning, farming, and marketing you'll soon make your farm profitable -- and find satisfaction doing it.

Macher shares proven methods for farming smarter and explores today's new crops, new livestock, and new markets that translate into new ways to make money. Making Your Small Farm Profitable explains how to:

* Exploit lucrative niche markets that others overlook

* Plan for optimal farm efficiency

* Determine equipment requirements and estimate machinery costs

* Compare costs against profit for common vegetables and livestock

* Sell your products a dozen different ways

BENEFICIAL CHEMICAL ELEMENTS OF PLANTS Understand beneficial elements and their role in the future of botany and agriculture Beneficial elements are those which, while not essential to plant life, can provide stimulation and enhance plant growth. Properly harnessed, these elements can bolster plant growth in the face of environmental conditions—including drought, nutrient deficiency, and excessive soil salinity—and biotic stresses like pathogens and animal activity. As climate change and population growth pose increasingly serious challenges to agriculture and essential plant production, it has never been more important to unleash the potential of beneficial elements. Beneficial Chemical Elements of Plants is an essential resource for researchers and industry specialists looking to enhance their understanding of these elements and the range and variety of their enhancements to plant growth. Written by leading scholars in the field of plant stress tolerance and nutrient enrichment, it discusses not only the rich possibilities of beneficial elements but their mechanisms of action at both biochemical and molecular levels. It details the precise potential roles played by each major beneficial element and surveys a range of elemental responses to specific environmental conditions and plant stresses. Beneficial Chemical Elements of Plants readers will also find: Chapters covering beneficial elements including aluminum, cobalt, sodium, selenium, and silicon Discussion of application methods and typical plant responses Treatment of beneficial elements in a wider environmental context Beneficial element applications to the field of sustainable agriculture Beneficial Chemical Elements of Plants is a fundamental starting point for researchers and students in the fields of plant physiology, crop science, agriculture, and botany, as well as for professionals in the biotechnology and agricultural industries.