A Call to Farms: Reconnecting to Nature, Food, and Community in a Modern World
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- Vorbestellbar
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- Erwartet am 9. Juli 2024
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- 14,99 €
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- Vorbestellbar
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- 14,99 €
Beschreibung des Verlags
Hope for the future lies with a new generation of regenerative farmers.
Within a decade, nearly half of all American farmland will change hands as an older generation of farmers steps aside. In their place, a groundswell of new growers will face numerous challenges, including soil degradation, insufficient income, and investors devouring farmland at a staggering pace. These new farmers are embracing regenerative agriculture—the holistic approach to growing food that restores the soil and biodiversity—in the movement to reclaim our health and the planet’s. But can their efforts help reverse an epidemic of diet-related disease, food inequality, and even climate change?
To answer that question and more, award-winning journalist Jennifer Grayson embedded herself in a groundbreaking farmer training program, then embarked on this investigative journey. The diverse array of farmers, graziers, and food activists whom she profiles here are working toward better, more sustainable foodways for all. From a one-acre market garden in Oregon to activists reviving food sovereignty in South Carolina, A Call to Farms tells the captivating story of these new agrarians finding hope and purpose in reconnecting to the land and striving to improve the future of American food.
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In this vibrant report, journalist Grayson (Unlatched) profiles farmers across the U.S. who are developing sustainable approaches to agriculture. Lamenting that the average price of farmland doubled between 2000 and 2020, Grayson explores how some farmers are doing more with less, describing how spouses Carys Wilkins and Benji Nagel maximize the productivity of their one-acre Oregon farm by planting crops close together and rotating them seasonally so that all plots are always in use. The profiled farmers value community as much as sustainability. For instance, Bonita Clemens founded a South Carolina program that teaches Black women how to grow crops for "themselves and their communities," aiming to build solidarity among participants while alleviating the dearth of healthy foods available in the state's Black neighborhoods. Grayson provides colorful accounts of the farmers' life stories, recounting how Alexandra Rosenberg-Rigutto dropped out of high school and struggled with drug addiction before becoming the director of a northern Michigan farm that teaches Jewish children how to grow produce, and how Natalie Bogwalker spent five years "in a hand-built dwelling, cooking roadkill over a stick-sparked fire, cloaked in buckskin" before starting a North Carolina permaculture school. Unfortunately, the biographical background can crowd out the often brief descriptions of what makes the farmers' techniques notable and environmentally friendly. Still, it's a spirited look at the lives of small, eco-conscious farmers.
