Our agricultural and food systems are not meeting everyone's needs, and despite great progress in increasing productivity over the past century, hundreds of millions of people remain hungry and malnourished. This book describes a different form of agriculture: one founded more on ecological principles and which is also more harmonious with people, their societies and cultures.

Edited by the world's leading expert on sustainable agriculture, this volume brings together the most influential scholarship in the field. The book maps out the complex subject area of sustainable agriculture and introduces and explains key and hard-to-find literature. It covers theoretical developments and critical appraisals of evidence, addressing what is not sustainable about current or past agricultural and food systems, as well as studies of transitions towards agricultural and rural sustainability at farm, community, regional, national and international levels, and through food supply chains.

This highly accessible one-of-a-kind collection is the essential student and practitioner reference text in sustainable agriculture.

About the author(s)

Professor Jules Pretty is Head of the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Essex. His books include The Pesticide Detox (2004), Agri-Culture: Reconnecting People, Land and Nature (2002), The Living Land (1998), Regenerating Agriculture (1995), The Hidden Harvest (1992, co-authored) and Unwelcome Harvest (1991, co-authored).

Contents

Part 1: Agrarian and Rural Perspectives * The Post-War Task * Thinking Like a Mountain * The Unsettling of America * Ecological Literacy * An Amish Perspective * Becoming Native to this Place * Creating Social Capital * Part 2: Agroecological Perspectives * Reality Cheques* The External Costs of Agricultural Production in the United States* From Pesticides to People: Improving Ecosystem Health in the Northern Andes * Agroecology and Agroecosystems * The Doubly Green Revolution * Part 3: Social Perspectives * Reversals, Institutions and Change * The Hawkesbury Experience: Tales from a Road Less Travelled * Social Capital and the Collective Management of Resources * Gateway to the Global Garden: Beta/Gamma Science for Dealing with Ecological Rationality * Ecological Basis for Low-toxicity Integrated Pest Management (IPM) in Rice * Part 4: Perspectives from Industrialized Countries * Landscapes Lost and Found * The Farm as Natural Habitat * Diet and Health: Diseases and Food * Coming in to the Foodshed * Part 5: Perspectives from Developing Countries * Rethinking Agriculture For New Opportunities * Soil Recuperation in Central America: How Innovation was Sustained after Project Intervention * Sustainable Rural Life and Agroecology, Santa Catarina State, Brazil * Lessons of Cuban Resistance * Benefits from Agroforestry in Africa, with Examples from Kenya and Zambia * Reducing Food Poverty by Increasing Agricultural Sustainability in Developing Countries *