Pages to Turn with Callused Fingers: A Literary Harvest

A Book Review Digest


When I brainstorm my dream farm I oscillate between ambition and a daunted daze. 'So, we're going to grow apples and keep honey bees which will pollinate the apple blossoms and of course we'll want bread so we'll have to grow wheat and we'll need to grow some dry beans and of course we need...

A Juicy Summary of a Dry (But Very Important) Book

Review Of: A History of World Agriculture From the Neolithic Age to the Current Crisis by Marcel Mazoyer and Laurence Roudart

In A World History of Agriculture authors Marcel Mazoyer and Laurence Roudart have come up with a theory of the evolution and differentiation of agrarian systems, providing an account of the most widespread and longest-lasting forms of agriculture.

A Crime Report

Review Of: Dr. Vandana Shiva’s “Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply”


Each sentence of renowned Indian activist Vandana Shiva’s book, “Stolen Harvest,” is the impassioned bark of an angered watchdog.

Ignorance Leads Well-Intentioned Writer to Believe Garden Education is Sharecropper Training

Review Of: Cultivating Failure January/February 2010 ATLANTIC MAGAZINE



Caitlin Flanigan is blatantly unaware of the difference between industrial agriculture and sustainable agriculture in her January/February 2010 article in the Atlantic, "Cultivating Failure."

Ethnic Diversity in the American Sustainable Agriculture Movement

Review Of: The Earth Knows My Name: Food, Culture and Sustainability in the Gardens of Ethnic Americans By Patricia Klindienst

Since choosing to migrate to rural America with a sort-of "back-to-the-land" ethos, my community has decreased in ethnic diversity. The suburban neighborhood I grew up in had people of all different races, backgrounds, and religions but most everyone I've met in the "sustainable agriculture movement" in rural Illinois, Washington, Texas, Massachusetts and Wisconsin have been white with American, Christian heritage. I've encountered many organic farms owned by white folk who employ Mexican immigrants but few owned by Mexicans, exacerbating my fear that environmentalist leadership suffers from cultural homogeny.