Agri-Culture

  • Agri-Culture book coverPublisher: 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

  1. Landscapes Lost and Found
  2. Monoscapes
  3. Reality Cheques
  4. Food for All
  5. Only Reconnect
  6. The Genetics Controversy
  7. Ecological Literacy
  8. 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
“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
“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