Food System Resources: Books

As western-style food systems extend further around the world, food sustainability is becoming an increasingly important issue. Such systems are not sustainable in terms of their consumption of resources, their impact on ecosystems or their effect on health and social inequality. From 2009 to 2011, the duALIne project, led by INRA and CIRAD, assembled a team of experts to investigate food systems downstream of the farm, from the farm gate, to consumption and the disposal of waste. Representing a diverse range of backgrounds spanning academia and the public and private sectors, the project aimed to review the international literature and identify major gaps in our knowledge. This book brings together its key conclusions and insights, presenting state-of-the-art research in food sustainability and identifying priority areas for further study. It will provide a valuable resource for researchers, decision-makers and stakeholders in the food industry.

What defines a sustainable food system? How can it be more inclusive? How do local and global scales interact and how does power flow within food systems? How to encourage an interdisciplinary approach to realizing sustainable food systems? And how to activate change? These questions are considered by EU and North American academics and practitioners in this book. Using a wide range of case studies, it provides a critical overview, showing how and where theory and practice can converge to produce more sustainable food systems.

Agricultural sales indicate that local food sales total between $4 billion and $12 billion annually. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) estimates that local food sales totaled $6.1 billion in 2012, reflecting sales from nearly 164,000 farmers selling locally marketed foods. Local and regional food systems generally refer to agricultural production and marketing that occurs within a certain geographic proximity (between farmer and consumer) or that involves certain social or supply chain characteristics in producing food (such as small family farms, urban gardens, or farms using sustainable agriculture practices). This book provides background information on many of the type of operations engaged in the U.S. local and regional food system; highlights some of the available resources within existing federal programs administered by USDA and other agencies; and discusses some of the legislative options that have been previously proposed by Congress and intended to broaden support for local and regional food systems.

Anyone who wants to learn basic living skills--the kind employed by our forefathers--need look no further than this eminently useful, full-color guide. Dye your own wool, raise chickens, weave a rug, make jam and cheese, and much, much more! With hundreds of projects, step-by-step sequences, photographs, charts, and illustrations, The Back to Basics Handbook will help you dye your own wool with plant pigments, graft trees, raise chickens, craft a hutch table with hand tools, and make treats such as blueberry peach jam and cheddar cheese. The truly ambitious will find instructions on how to build a log cabin or an adobe brick homestead. More than just practical advice, this is also a book for dreamers--even if you live in a city apartment you will find your imagination sparked, and there's no reason why you can't, for example, make a loom and weave a rag rug. Complete with tips for old-fashioned fun (square dancing calls, homemade toys, and kayaking tips), this is the ultimate concise guide to voluntary simplicity.