Organic Overview

The Encyclopedia of Organic, Sustainable, and Local Food ebook (free download)

The Encyclopedia of Organic, Sustainable, and Local Food pulls together a fascinating array of diverse, interdisciplinary topics to pre a thorough overview of our current alternative food system. With increasing attention focused on organic and local food, many people are attracted to these sustainable food choices. Yet despite its popularity, there are misconceptions and a general lack of understanding about organic and local food.

This encyclopedia illuminates social concerns, economic trends, policy influences, and ecological terms to pre a comprehensive overview. Contributions from expert authors from government agencies, research universities, and private organizations pre key information on each of these relevant topics. Eating is a basic human activity, yet many people do not know where their food comes from. This book helps readers fill the gap between the trendy and the factual.

>>> The Encyclopedia of Organic, Sustainable, and Local Food (free download) – click here

This encyclopedia brings together an array of interdisciplinary topics to provide an overview of the current alternative food systems. It looks at terminology in the areas of organic and local foods as well as social concerns, economic trends, policies, and ecological and sustainability concerns.

The 150 A–Z entries cover such subjects as Biodiversity, Crop rotation, Environmental issues, Food safety, Free trade, Natural food, and Water quality. A topical list of the entries groups them under headings such as “Activism, Movements, and Community”; “Agriculture”; and “Sustainability.”

The book is well indexed, and the articles are written by a variety of professionals and experts, including university professors, the Washington Representative for the Food and Environment Program of the Union of Concerned Scientists, a senior economist from the USDA, a food systems consultant, and an environmental social scientist. Each entry contains suggestions for further reading that for the most part are very current, plus the book has a very useful selected bibliography at the end of the volume. The four appendixes contain pertinent government documents such as “Recent Growth Patterns in the U.S. Organic Foods Market, 2002.” Although other reference sources cover some of the same topics, there is little else with this particular focus.

The encyclopedia is both easy to read and comprehend and well positioned costwise to compete in the public library market as well as providing great information for the undergraduate. Recommended for most libraries.

Overview and history of corporate farming in the U.S.?

I’m working on a newspaper story about organic gardening and I’m trying to get an overview of the history of corporate farming in the U.S. and some of the big-name corporations normally associated with corporate farming, since it seems that the increasing emphasis on organic gardening and farming is, to a large degree, a reaction against corporate farming. Any resources anyone could point me to would be greatly appreciated.

Corporate farming is a term that describes the business of agriculture, specifically, what is seen by some as the practices of would-be megacorporations involved in food production on a very large scale. It is a modern food industry issue, and encompasses not only the farm itself, but also the entire chain of agriculture-related business, including seed supply, agrichemicals, food processing, machinery, storage, transport, distribution, marketing, advertising, and retail sales. The term also includes the influence of these companies on education, research and public policy, through their educational funding and government lobbying efforts. “Corporate farming” is often used synonymously with “agribusiness” (although “agribusiness” quite often is not used in the corporate farming sense), and it is seen as the destroyer of the family farm. Two percent of all farms in the United States are owned by corporations or other non-family entities, but only half of those farms earn more than $50,000 per year.[1]

Critics argue that the ultimate goal of corporate farming is to vertically integrate the entire process of food production, from the development of proprietary strains of DNA through to the distribution and sale of food to consumers. Some corporations are considered to be well on the way to achieving this objective, and have become very large in the process, such as Archer Daniels Midland and the privately held Cargill, with 2004 revenues of $62.9 billion.[citation needed]

“Corporate farming” is a fairly broad term that deals with the general practices and effects of a small number of large, global corporations that dominate the food industry. It does not refer simply to any incorporated agribusiness enterprise, although most agricultural businesses today are in some way economically connected to the dominant food industry players. As such, it may be thought of as a movement, which is at times also referred to as “anti-corporate farming”.

Source(s):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_f…

What is Beyond Organic – Overview

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