Jules Pretty
The author Jules Pretty is based at the borders of the counties of Suffolk and Essex in eastern England. He lives in the village of Nayland, and is Professor of Environment and Society & Deputy Vice-Chancellor at the University of Essex.
Jules has written and edited books on the braiding of nature and people, exploring the importance of place and the land for identity and health of individuals and cultures. Jules’ latest book, The East Country: Almanac Tales of Valley and Shore, was published by Cornell University Press in Sept 2017.
The Edge of Extinction was also published by Cornell University Press (2014). This Luminous Coast (Full Circle, 2011) was also published in paperback by Cornell.
“A literary lullaby…” with “whispered, timely echoes of Leopold’s land ethic” Nick Crane (Waterstones top 10 book)
“For much of the 20th century the literature of landscape and place was in the hands of conservative thinkers and writers, and it is rewarding to see how the terrain has been secured today by more generous and outward-looking imaginations, as is evident in this deeply felt and open-hearted book.” (Ken Worpole)
“A small treasure of a book” (Church Times)
“Quite superbly, (manages) to place us in the moment: in the world as we ourselves experience it; commonplace yet vast and significant.” (Michael Smith, Mythical Britain)
“An invitation to learn and be inspired” (BBC Countryfile)
Podcast with Jonathan Hall of Cornell University press (summer 2018): here
Twitter campaign on The East Country: daily posts at “julespretty1″ using #TheEastCountry.
The East Country “encourages long attachments to the local as profoundly valuable undertakings” (Robert Macfarlane).
“A brave and visionary book” (Douglas Christie)
“A marvelous book… something mystical, a song of praise for a world that is vanishing” (Astrid Ogilvie)
His research centres on agricultural sustainability, nature and health, and consumption patterns and well-being. The Manifesto for a Green Mind sets out a new research agenda building on healthy behaviours and contact with nature.
Jules received an OBE in 2006 for services to sustainable agriculture, an honorary degree from Ohio State University in 2009, and was a visiting Professor-at-Large at Cornell University for 6 years.
He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology and the Royal Society of Arts, former Deputy-Chair of the government’s Advisory Committee on Releases to the Environment, and has served on advisory committees for UK, US and Swiss government departments and research councils. He is Chair of the Kansas State University and USAID Sustainable Intensification Innovation Lab.
He is Vice-President of Essex Wildlife Trust and the Rural Community Council of Essex. This Luminous Coast won the New Angle Prize for Literature in 2013. He received the British Science Association Presidential Medal, Agriculture and Food (2015), and is Founding and Chief Editor of the International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability.
Edge of Extinction reviews
New Scientist (2014)
Times Higher (2014)
Geographical Magazine (2014)
“Always hyper-alert to the landscape and people… His writing tingles.” New Scientist (2014)
“Pretty writes beautifully of the places and people he meets … slowly building up layers of history, ecology, topography and culture.. A wealth of ecological and cultural wisdom emerges (from) each of the chapters.” Times Higher (2014)
“Hugely entertaining (and) wide-ranging. Pretty… offers ‘clues for moderns’ about how to live the good life. There are wonderful accounts of the ways in which nature permeates every aspect of existence.” Geographical Magazine (2014)
New papers
2017 paper on Green Mind Theory: How Brain-Body-Behaviour Links into Natural and Social Environments for Healthy Habits. Free to access.
2015 paper published in IJEHR on “greener and prosocial economies.” Free to access
2015 paper in Insects on how IPM & farmer field schools raise yields & reduce pesticide use by >50%. Free to access
2015 paper in JPH on “mental health outcomes of allotment gardening”. Free to access.
100 Hearts and Habits
100 Hearts and Habits was a year-long campaign to link with The Edge of Extinction. The world needs a global movement to keep it from the edge of extinction. A happier, healthier planet is possible, if the affluent change. The campaign uses social media to raise engagement with the idea of adopting 100 Hearts and Habits (#100HeartsandHabits).
100 Hearts and HabitsMaking Our Impacts PositiveA Hundred Hearts and Habits: A 100 Club to Keep the World from the Edge of Extinction
Radio appearances (listen here)
NPR – To The Best of Our Knowledge (on This Luminous Coast)
BBC Radio 4 – Start the Week (on The Edge of Extinction)
-----------------
Agri-Culture
Publisher: Earthscan
- First published: 2002 (English edition), 2005 (Japanese edition)
- ISBN: 978-1-85383-925-2 (English edition)
Something is wrong with our agricultural and food systems. Despite great progress in increasing productivity in recent decades, hundreds of millions of people remain hungry and malnourished, and further millions suffer for eating too much food or the wrong sort.
Agri-Culture envisages the expansion of a new form of food production and consumption founded on more ecological principles and in harmony with the cultures, knowledges and collective capacities of the producers themselves. It draws on many stories of successful agricultural transformation in developing and industrialised countries, but with a warning that true prosperity will depend on the radical reform of the institutions and policies that control global food futures, and fundamental changes in the way we think. The time has come for the next agricultural revolution.
The illustrations in this book, including the cover painting from northern Nigeria, are all painted by John Pretty (father of the author).
Excerpts
Contents
- Landscapes Lost and Found
- Monoscapes
- Reality Cheques
- Food for All
- Only Reconnect
- The Genetics Controversy
- Ecological Literacy
- Crossing the Internal Frontiers
Endorsements
“An excellent exposition of agricultural transformation from about 12,000 years ago to present-day industrial agriculture…. recommended to those who care for the health of mother-earth, especially agricultural institutions, farmers and policy makers.”
Experimental Agriculture
Experimental Agriculture
“A manifesto for change – a key text for the next agricultural revolution.”BBC Wildlife Magazine
“Agri-Culture is optimistic, well-crafted and peppered with alternately interesting and shocking facts, skillfully woven together with a string of stories and metaphors.”
Scientists for Global Responsibility
Scientists for Global Responsibility
“The chapter on The Genetics Controversy is the best balanced and most easily understood that I have ever seen and I would recommend the book for this alone”Bulletin of the British Ecological Society
============
