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Farmers' Markets: Success, Failure, and Management Ecology
Farmers' Markets: Success, Failure and Management Ecology is the only book presently available that investigates the current phenomenal growth of farmers' markets in the U.S. The research is a reflection of a period marked by growing consumer interest in locally produced foods, a resistance toward a globalizing food system, and seemingly boundless interest in and support for farmers' markets. Using an ecological approach, the book explores historic trends related to growth and decline in market numbers, examines the management organization associated with markets of specific sizes, analyzes the characteristics and issues associated with markets that fail, and offers a model that illustrates how farmers' market organizers successfully adapt to barriers and challenges in their environment. The book engages a node in the food system that has implications for the economic health of small farms and the social and economic life of communities. The book incorporates both the academic and the practical. It will be an important reference to students and researchers across disciplines with interests in food system research, as well as practitioners managing or working with farmers' markets. As an applied study, the book provides information and recommendations to assist markets with decision making and strategic planning. Although the focus of this research is on one area in the United States, the findings have broad application. The foreword to this study is by distinguished scholar and food system analyst, Gail Feenstra of the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program (SAREP) at the University of California, Davis.
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The Complete Guide to Organic Livestock Farming: Everything You Need to Know about Natural Farming on a Small Scale (Back-To-Basics Farming)
Small scale farming has grown greatly in popularity during the last two decades, with a greater turn in public awareness toward locally grown, organic, grass fed products that have not been modified, chemically altered, or poorly fed. For that reason, those looking to start a small scale farm and raise livestock have a greater chance than ever before to take advantage of the new market for small scale goods. This book will show any potential small scale farmer how to start raising their livestock and marketing it to the organic, natural lifestyle community that so fervently seeks out these products. You will learn how to start the basic outline for your new small farm, including which livestock to raise, how to build their pens and habitat, and what you will be feeding them to maintain a healthy, organic farm. You will learn the basics of animal husbandry, from genetics and breeding to feeding, building locations, and proper health and reproduction care. You will learn how to find yourself in the right niche for selling your products and what legalities you must see to as well as the butchering and processing phase Hundreds of hours of in-depth interviews have been conducted for this book with top experts in farm management to provide you with details about farm planning, financial planning, and proper livestock planning. A complete appendix will detail the various breeds and needs of cattle, chickens, goats, horses, pigs, and sheep to help you select the right livestock for your farm. In addition, you will learn the basic composition of most feeds, different grasses and legumes you can use, and find a plethora of outside resources to utilize. For anyone with dreams of a small farm and raising livestock in their future, this is a book for you.
From Foraging to Farming in the Andes: New Perspectives on Food Production and Social Organization
Archeologists have always considered the beginnings of Andean civilization from ca. 13,000 to 6,000 years ago to be important in terms of the appearance of domesticated plants and animals, social differentiation, and a sedentary lifestyle, but there is more to this period than just these developments. During this period, the spread of crop production and other technologies, kinship-based labor projects, mound-building, and population aggregation formed ever-changing conditions across the Andes. From Foraging to Farming in the Andes proposes a new and more complex model for understanding the transition from hunting and gathering to cultivation. It argues that such developments evolved regionally, were fluid and uneven, and were subject to reversal. This book develops these arguments from a large body of archaeological evidence, collected over 30 years in two valleys in northern Peru, and then places the valleys in the context of recent scholarship studying similar developments around world.
