Farming With Nature

A growing body of evidence shows that agricultural landscapes can be managed not only to produce crops but also to support biodiversity and promote ecosystem health. Innovative farmers and scientists, as well as indigenous land managers, are developing diverse types of “ecoagriculture” landscapes to generate cobenefits for production, biodiversity, and local people. Farming with Nature offers a synthesis of the state of knowledge of key topics in ecoagriculture. The book is a unique collaboration among renowned agricultural and ecological scientists, leading field conservationists, and farm and community leaders to synthesize knowledge and experience across sectors. The book examines: the knowledge base for ecoagriculture as well as barriers, gaps, and opportunities for developing improved ecoagriculture systems what we have learned about managing landscapes to achieve multiple objectives at a landscape scale existing incentives for farmers, other land managers, and investors to develop and invest in ecoagriculture systems pathways to develop, implement, manage, and scale up successful ecoagriculture Insights are drawn from around the world, in tropical, Mediterranean, and temperate environments, from farming systems that range from highly commercialized to semi-subsistence. Farming with Nature is an important new work that can serve as a foundation document for planners, farm organizations, researchers, project developers, and policy makers to develop strategies for promoting and sustaining ecoagriculture landscapes. Replete with valuable best practice guidelines, it is a critical resource for both practitioners and researchers in the field.

This book is about the invisible or subtle nature of food and farming, and also about the nature of existence. Everything that we know (and do not know) about the physical world has a subtle counterpart which has been scarcely considered in modernist farming practice and research. If you think this book isn’t for you, if it appears more important to attend to the pressing physical challenges the world is facing before having the luxury of turning to such subtleties, then think again. For it could be precisely this worldview – the one prioritises the physical-material dimension of reality - that helped get us into this situation in the first place. Perhaps we need a different worldview to get us out? This book makes a foundational contribution to the discipline of Subtle Agroecologies, a nexus of indigenous epistemologies, multidisciplinary advances in wave-based and ethereal studies, and the science of sustainable agriculture. Not a farming system in itself, Subtle Agroecologies superimposes a non-material dimension upon existing, materially-based agroecological farming systems. Bringing together 43 authors from 12 countries and five continents, from the natural and social sciences as well as the arts and humanities, this multi-contributed book introduces the discipline, explaining its relevance and potential contribution to the field of Agroecology. Research into Subtle Agroecologies may be described as the systematic study of the nature of the invisible world as it relates to the practice of agriculture, and to do this through adapting and innovating with research methods, in particular with those of a more embodied nature, with the overall purpose of bringing and maintaining balance and harmony. Such research is an open-minded inquiry, its grounding being the lived experiences of humans working on, and with, the land over several thousand years to the present. By reclaiming and reinterpreting the perennial relationship between humans and nature, the implications would revolutionise agriculture, heralding a new wave of more sustainable farming techniques, changing our whole relationship with nature to one of real collaboration rather than control, and ultimately transforming ourselves.

Explains why it is important to sustain native plants & animals in agricultural landscapes, outlines issues in developing & implementing practical approaches to safeguard native biodiversity in rural areas. Considers ecological & agricultural issues that determine what native biodiversity occurs in farmland.--

This book examines contemporary problems caused by intensive livestock production, and the impact on resource use, animal welfare, climate change and biodiversity. It will be an invaluable resource and provide inspiration for students, professionals, NGOs and the general reader.

...A natural way of farming that renounces all human knowledge and intervention. - preface.

Produce more abundant, high-quality crops with the information you'll find in this book! Recent concerns over environmental pollution and food quality degradation caused by the excessive use of chemicals have prompted scientists and policymakers to re-evaluate modern agricultural processes and search for alternatives that will aid in the production of healthy foods and the protection of our environment. Nature Farming and Microbial Applications summarizes current research in the field, highlighting unique practices such as the use of microbial inoculants and various alternatives to chemical fertilizers and pesticides. The principles of nature farming, as set forth by Japanese philosopher Mokichi Okada, must fulfill these requirements: producing safe and nutritious food that promotes good health providing economic and spiritual benefits to both producers and consumers being sustainable and easily practiced conserving and protecting the environment producing sufficient high-quality food for an expanding world population To this end, Nature Farming and Microbial Applications addresses issues of concern to organic farmers, including: soil fertility pest control effective microorganisms photosynthesis transpiration plant-water relations stress resistance of growing crops This well-referenced volume contains unique and original methods of modeling and analysis. It will be used again and again as a reference source for students and researchers.

Argues that the Earth's deteriorating condition is man-made and outlines a way for the process to be reversed by rehabilitating the deserts using natural farming.