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This is the David-and-Goliath story of how an American bureaucrat took on the tobacco industry--and helped topple it. David Kessler, head of the Food and Drug Administration for seven years under Presidents Bush and Clinton, earned the nickname "Eliot Knessler" from The Washington Post--a pun meant to evoke the memory of the Prohibition-era gangbuster--because he rejuvenated a moribund agency. The FDA regulated, in Kessler's words, "one quarter of every dollar Americans spent--from the food they eat to the drugs they take to the cosmetics they wear." Yet it lacked the courage to take on the country's most lethal product: cigarettes. So did Kessler, at least initially. He agreed with aides and others that Big Tobacco was too powerful a force in Washington, D.C. "The industry perceived threats everywhere, and responded to them ferociously," he writes. Moreover, challenging the industry would waste important resources that could have a more tangible benefit for consumers if they were spent elsewhere. Even before making the choice to go after cigarettes, Kessler was a figure of controversy, and this only intensified when he became one of the few Republican holdovers in the Clinton administration.
Much of the book deals with the routine business of the FDA: orange-juice seizures, a fight to restrict the sale of body tissues from foreign sources, how he responded to complaints that syringes were found in Pepsi cans, and so on. But the driving force behind Kessler's narrative is how he slowly woke up to the possibility of regulating cigarettes. "It is too easy to be swayed by the argument that tobacco is a legal product and should be treated like any other," he writes. "A product that kills people--when used as intended--is different. No one should be allowed to make a profit from that." His story is a lesson in Washington power politics--a game he played with naiveté when he started but was expert at by the end of his tenure.
To say Kessler and his team of FDA regulators "defeated" Big Tobacco is an overstatement: they were part of a broader effort that included trial lawyers, consumer groups, and crusading journalists, and the industry hasn't exactly gone away. But they were instrumental in forcing tobacco companies to admit that nicotine is addictive and cigarettes cause cancer, and in bringing about a sea change in the industry's legal and popular standing. Kessler now believes in regulation so tight it will strangle Big Tobacco forever: "If our goal is to halt this manmade epidemic," he writes, "the tobacco industry, as currently configured, needs to be dismantled." A Question of Intent is a well-told muckraker. It unfolds deliberately, like a good detective story. Admirers of Jonathan Harr's A Civil Action, especially those with a taste for public policy, won't be disappointed. --John J. Miller
Book Description
Now in paperback: former FDA commissioner David Kessler's non-fiction legal thriller about his agency's fight with Big Tobacco. Dubbed "Eliot Knessler" by The Washington Post, due to the way he resurrected a moribund government agency, FDA Commissioner David Kessler launched a carefully considered, thorough, and aggressive assault against the previously unassailable tobacco industry. His attempt to regulate tobacco as a drug was met with all of the industry's now notorious practices: legal stonewalling, manipulation of "bought" elected officials, intimidation, and outright lies. Kessler tackled all of these challenges with the vigor of a man perhaps outgunned but not outmaneuvered. At the height the FDA's legal battle, U.S. News and World Report called Kessler "somebody you can tell your children about" and compared him to the protagonists of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and To Kill a Mockingbird. Like those classic American stories, A Question of Intent is about the search for truth, the choices people make, and right and wrong. It is about moral courage.
Customer Reviews:
An Educating and Entertaining Read.......2007-04-25
David Kessler in A Question of Intent: A Great American Battle with a Deadly Industry provides readers with an entertaining and educating read that serves as a guide for organizations while showing an detailed view of bureaucracy, the media, and government organizations. He effectively displays the numerous benefits of affiliation between organizations and their leaders when trying to change the regulation over tobacco. Kessler also does a great job showing the role of a President and the effect he or she can have on organizations when they get to choose the leading personnel. Where Kessler falls short though is in providing a well organized story, free of excess personal narratives, and repetition. Do these errors tend to negate the quality of the book as a whole? No, but it makes me question his editor and the intentions he or she had in the scattered layout and whether included memoir aspects were entirely necessary.
By bringing the reader directly into the Food and Drug Administration's everyday happenings, Kessler is able to display the decision process of a government organization, while adding an element of suspense. His emphasizes the importance of connections and affiliation and teaches readers the scope and impact that lobbyists can have on the outcome of policies. He often describes that "too late" he realized that he had been "sandbagged by...lobbyists" and "overlooked [the] key tactical step" of lining up more support and connections (Kessler, 48). He shows that it was only through the support of his older staff and political connections that he was able to move forward in his fight for tobacco regulation.
The involvement of the reader in the processes Kessler and his team had to go through to get government attention on the regulation of tobacco could easily serve as a guide for other struggling organizations. He shows in detail how they used the media and were careful about their timing when making decisions. For instance, Kessler asked credible journalists to downplay stories to the New York Times to the extent that newspapers wouldn't even write about events such as the American Red Cross' bad blood supply. This manipulation of the media was useful to the organization by downplaying bad press and avoiding un-needed fear and panic. For other organizations who find themselves in the heat of the media, they might want to take notes from Kessler and his experiences
Another positive aspect of Kessler's book was his ability to show the vital role of the President. Most readers, like myself, would be surprised to learn that the President can have such a vital effect on issues such as food labeling. Kessler describes the difficulty and "maneuvering" it took to get amendments on the underage purchases of cigarettes on the Presidents desk (Kessler, 98). Once they got there, he describes how a Congressional hearing was crucial in how the media framed the issue - eventually leading to the impression the American public got on the topic. Overall, his book gives a great overview of what it takes to get an issue to the desk of the President, and how the steps taken after that can shape public opinion and determine the fate or success of a proposed amendment.
In the end, Kessler and his editor could have improved on the organization of the book. The subject of each 3-7 page chapter skips from topic to topic. It gets tedious when the reader has to continually shift his or her focus from tobacco to fresh food labels to the AIDS drug progression then back to tobacco - all with a little autobiographical information thrown into the mix. At the same time, Kessler consistently switches between using character's first and last names. One minute he's calling a successful reporter "Jim," like they're best friends, the next referring to him as "O'Hara" who had a "reputation among reporters for credibility" (Kessler, 92). The inconsistency is unnecessary and confusing.
Another detail that distracted from a smooth read from a trustworthy author, is his insistence on showing he "did not know" what he was doing, or that he "should have realized" that many of his decisions would have negative effects. Readers already understand no person is perfect, there is no reason to keep reminding them up to two or three times a page.
For readers who want an entertaining, yet educational read, Kessler's book provides both. While it does have its minor errors and editorial mishaps, his ability to produce a book that readers like a thriller yet explains the inner-workings of bureaucracy in a simple-to-understand way is uncanny. Lessons can be learned by regular readers seeking more information on a much debated topic - the regulation of tobacco - or big organizations looking to revitalize their strategies to achieve greater success in their goals.
great expose of an evil industry.......2005-10-01
America, for all its faults, is the battlefield on which many of the world's most important health questions are being fought. None of those is more important than the questions this excellent book addresses. Is nicotine a narcotic? Are America's major cigarette companies, collectively known as Big Tobacco, deliberately turning their customers into nicotine addicts?
They were the key questions David Kessler tackled when he was Commissioner of America's Food and Drug Administration (FDA) from 1990 to 1997. Kessler, who is now Dean of the Yale University Law School, fought a tenacious battle with Big Tobacco and its powerful allies on Capitol Hill during those years. The battle was so tough and Big Tobacco so ruthless that Kessler and his small team were often compared to Elliot Ness and his small band of Untouchables who slugged it out with Al Capone's army of gangsters and corrupt politicians during the Prohibition years.
Certainly, the tenacity of Big Tobacco in the face of overwhelming evidence that damns its product can only remind the reader of Al Capone and America's Organized Crime, whose sole god is ill gotten money. Big Tobacco practiced, for example, the code of Omerta and, if Kessler is to be believed, former employees who gave evidence against them lived in fear of their lives. Big Tobacco had armies of lawyers and US Congressmen in their corporate pockets. All they seemed short of was organizing the gangland-style hits that were Capone's specialty.
Indeed, the specters of Ness and Capone are never too far away. Kessler hired special investigators trained by America's elite combat forces to interrogate witnesses. One member of Kessler's squad trawled all of America's seaports to uncover key evidence that Big Tobacco had illegally imported genetically modified tobacco into the United States. The book is, in many ways, a classic detective story needing only Humphrey Bogart, Jimmy Cagney, Tom Hanks or some other celluloid figure to bring it to life. It races along from the very first page to the final denouement.
Big Tobacco's four-pronged counter-strategy against the FDA is also equally fast-paced. Working with military precision, it used, as page 169 tells us, frontal assaults, surgical strikes, allied attacks and air cover to overwhelm the offices and efforts of Kessler and his team. Like Organized Crime, Big Tobacco knew what side its bread was buttered on. Like Organized Crime, Big Tobacco's bosses proved themselves to be ruthless and cynical competitors with pitiless cash registers for hearts. Their proud boast was that they had more money than God.
Their vast war chests poisoned public debate in America for many years just as their product continues to poison the bodies of their fellow Americans. As well as the armies of hired lawyers who were central to their strategy, they employed mercenary academics to rubber-stamp their products with a scientific sheen of respectability. The aura of scientific impartiality these academics bartered away helped Big Tobacco's bosses accumulate their almost limitless wealth, buy their way into Capitol Hill and jam the world's hospital cancer wards full with cigarette smokers. Although Kessler names some of these contemptible researchers, he goes much further. By exposing their mercenary motives, he discredits them and Big Tobacco, which paid them their ultimately puny pieces of silver.
The book, despite its topicality, starts off with a quote from the Odes of Horace, which tells us that "The guilty have a head start, and retribution is always slow of start, but it catches up." Fortunately, the net is finally beginning to close in on Big Tobacco and its tainted allies. Thanks to people like Kessler and his team of Untouchables, the nicotine debate is starting to be aired out into the open.
Sometimes, of course, the cure is worse than the disease. Kessler's comments about nicotine nasal sprays should be enough to make anyone feel pity for the nicotine abuser and disgust at the companies which can conceive, let alone peddle such an obnoxious product.
No sympathy whatsoever can be spared for Kessler's villains. Though bloodied, Big Tobacco is far from bowed. It continues to ensnare American schoolchildren with its product and to export its deadly product to the four ends of the earth. Despite Big Tobacco's enviable revenues, its feet of clay and the tissues of lies it surrounds itself with have both been well exposed by this great book, which President Jimmy Carter and a host of other luminaries endorse. The hope must now be, as Kessler puts it, that Big Tobacco will eventually be drummed out of business altogether. Their demise would not only make the air we breathe cleaner. It would also help clean up the corridors of power, which Big Tobacco so thoroughly infected with its own insatiable addiction to the profit motive.
A Breath of Fresh Air.......2004-03-25
Thank you, Dr. Kessler, for pursuing the tobacco dragon and for writing this book. It should be required reading for every medical and divinity school student.
Civics lesson that reads like a thriller.......2002-08-05
Wow. Who would have thought a book on the history of the FDA's handling of tobacco regulation would read like a spy novel? I grabbed this book off the new books shelf at the library, and picked it up expecting to skim through it. Kessler begins with how he was chosen to head the FDA, and introduces several of his staff including the one who started him toward taking on the tobacco industry. Then we get plenty of background including the history, marketing, and laws concerning tobacco.
With all the press on Big Tobacco, I expected them to be shown as fiendish. I've been a member of Americans for Non-Smokers Rights for 20 years, and I've read all about the Industry's dirty tricks, and I fully expected to read about them again here. What I didn't expect to find was the thoroughness in Big Tobacco attempted to discredit the FDA, and Kessler takes us through the political campaigns and counter-campaigns. He shows how Big Tobacco created fake advocacy groups on several issues, leading to their attempt to muzzle the FDA and cut off all their government funding. If you remember the '94 Contract with America and the movement against Big Government, you'll be surprised to find how Big Tobacco co-opted it to fight the FDA, one of the more admired agencies.
If you weren't already cynical about how the US government operates, this book will get you there, even with its descriptions of some of the good guys continually outmaneuvered by the bad ones. Several congress members are shown to be captives of Big Tobacco, doing their dirty work with scripts written by their lobbyists and lawyers.
And speaking of lawyers, one of the most amazing revelations to me ok is how the tobacco industry became captives of their law firms! Yes, instead of working for their clients, the law firms ended up calling all the shots, and the CEOs would read statements prepared by them. The book covers how this came to be.
If you love looking of source material, you'll be busy. Kessler leaves plenty of footnotes in this meaty book for your review. My only complaint is that the book jumps around in places, as the story moves forward or back depending on the topic being covered. But this is a small beef, as the material is so compelling. Find out not only how cigarette's nicotine content was manipulated but how the industry tried to hide this obvious fact from FDA visitors to their manufacturing facilities. Enjoy the victories and despair over the setbacks; this is a policy-wonk's book as written by a Tom Clancy wanna-be.
A Govenment Policy Thriller.......2002-06-24
This is an excellent book. Kessler's story reads like a thriller, but is non-fiction. In addition to the fascinating narrative, Kessler provides along the way many insights into how Washington REALLY works. The most disheartening thing about the book is the extent to which Kessler documents how our political culture is awash with tobacco money; the tentacles of the tobacco companies seemingly reach everywhere. Kessler reveals that many "think tanks" and other public policy mouthpieces--even senators--have been bought by big tobacco and are literally reading from scripts the companies have provided trying to shift tobacco issues into ideological issues involving freedom and democracy. Unfortunately, the tobacco companies usually win with such strategies. Kessler is quite non-partisan in his approach to his topic, so politicians are judged purely by their stance on tobacco. Clinton comes out as wishy-washy, Gore as rock solid, while Dennis Hastert, Newt Gingrich and assorted others come out as shills for big tobacco. A very enlightening and enjoyable book; it will make you yearn for true campaign finance reform.
Book Description
Few industrial enterprises left a more enduring imprint on the American West than Miller & Lux, a vast meatpacking conglomerate started by two San Francisco butchers in 1858. Industrial Cowboys examines how Henry Miller and Charles Lux, two German immigrants, consolidated the West's most extensive land and water rights, swayed legislatures and courts, monopolized western beef markets, and imposed their corporate will on California's natural environment. Told with clarity and originality, this story uses one fascinating case study to illuminate the industrial development and environmental transformation of the American West during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
The process by which two neighborhood butchers turned themselves into landed industrialists depended to an extraordinary degree on the acquisition, manipulation, and exploitation of natural resources. David Igler examines the broader impact that industrialism--as exemplified by Miller & Lux--had on landscapes and waterscapes, and on human as well as plant and animal life in the West. He also provides a rich discussion of the social relations engineered by Miller & Lux, from the dispossession of Californio rancheros to the ethnic segmentation of the firm's massive labor force. The book also covers such topics as land acquisition and reclamation, water politics, San Francisco's unique business environment, and the city's relation to its surrounding hinterlands. Above all, Igler highlights essential issues that resonate for us today: who holds the right and who has the power to engineer the landscape for market production?
Customer Reviews:
A path breaking work.......2007-06-08
This is a fine book that provides important new insights not only into the history of big cattle ranching in California, but also into our broader understanding of the settlement of the American West and the meaning of American industrialization. Igler's concept of the "industrial cowboy" who works, in essence, in a factory without walls in which the landscape of nature itself becomes part of the technological system should force all American historians to rethink their understanding of what constitutes an industrialization. Likewise, Igler's work adds to the growing body of evidence that one of the best ways of defining and thinking about the American West is a place where a relatively pristine environment interesected with an advanced industrial society.
Book Description
A rich, colorful history of California centering on the untold story of America 's biggest farmer, J.G. Boswell, who controls more than $1 billion worth of water rights and real estate in the heart of the state.
J.G. Boswell is the biggest farmer in America. Over the past fifty years he has built a secret empire while thumbing his nose at nature, politicians, labor unions and every journalist who ever tried to lift the veil on the ultimate "factory in the fields." Now eighty years old, with an almost pathological bent toward privacy, Boswell has spent the past few years confiding one of the great stories of the American West to Mark Arax and Rick Wartzman. The King of California is the previously untold account of how a Georgia slave-owning family migrated to California in the early 1920s, drained one of America 's biggest lakes in an act of incredible hubris and carved out the richest cotton empire in the world. Indeed, the sophistication of Boswell 's agricultural operation--from lab to field to gin--is unrivaled anywhere.
Much more than a business story, this is a sweeping social history that details the saga of cotton growers who were chased from the South by the boll weevil and brought their black farmhands to California. It is a gripping read with cameos by a cast of famous characters, from Cecil B. DeMille to Cesar Chavez.
Customer Reviews:
The king of California.......2006-11-04
This book is way too long and somewhat redundant and boring. The basic story is good, but the author takes too much time and too many pages to tell it.
History, Biography and Expose?.......2006-06-23
I would recommend this book to anyone interested in politics, agriculture, or water rights. It is a well-written and very readable.
It follows four generations of the Boswell family to trace how they assembled the largest industrial farm in the world. Along the way, the authors explore the history of the San Joaquin valley and those who came there to farm it, those who left and those who got left behind. For every group that made a fortune, there were many others who were disappointed. There are plenty of interesting stories of Washington and Sacramento politics, and stories of common people following dreams.
The book examines the effect of large scale farming on farm owners, on those who work the farms now and those who worked them in the past. It provides some good background on the politics of water rights and government involvement in farming, and on the involvement of agriculture in local, state and federal politics.
If you are interested in the politics and history of water in the western states, Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner is one of the best books I have read on any subject.
Overstuffed but Worth Reading.......2005-11-26
I grew up in Fresno, in the shadow of agribusiness. The story behind "King of California" is a fascinating and important one but I'm not sure this "biography" does it justice. I disliked the awkward mixture of history and journalism. Is this an expose, a biography or history? Its never really clear and the way the book is organized, around the four seasons, is particularly opaque. What does it mean to call a section, "winter?" when it is covering history spanning decades and contains interviews with living people? That said, the material is fascinating. From the role the Boswell's played in taming Tulare Lake, to the development of modern cotton farming, the politics of agriculture and the way big business in general got access and results in subsidies and favorable policy. Early on, Tulare Lake and by extension, the San Joaquin Valley in its pre-U.S. days is described with a vividness I've rarely read elsewhere. However, the description of the Boswell's roots in racism and its legacy in the Central Valley is definitely worth telling but I think it gets too little space here and competes with so many other subjects. Frankly, I'm surprised that this book has gotten the acclaim that it has. While its clearly well researched, the writing is spotty lucid in some places and sensationalized elsewhere. I think the book tries to cover far too many topics; Water politics, cotton farming, racism in California, family history, corporate intrigue, labor issues, flood control and company towns. Had it narrowed it focus to just water, cotton and corporate intrigue, I think it would have been a far more powerful book.
Surfaced and Harpooned.......2005-04-26
This far-reaching book is quite an accomplishment in biography and investigative journalism. Arax and Wartzman cover the history of the immense Boswell farming company of California, and the two guys named J.G. (the founding uncle and the current chairman, his nephew) who built the company into the largest cotton operation on Earth. Through cutthroat competitive instincts and political wheeling-and-dealing, the Boswells amassed tens of thousands of acres in California's Central Valley, and were instrumental in eliminating what was once the largest freshwater lake west of the Mississippi, as the former Tulare Lake was transformed into a festering network of levees, canals, and cesspools dedicated to the mass production of cotton. Thus, the Boswells built the area's environment, culture, and economics for their own profitability.
The book also serves as a great exploration of the business of factory farming, detailing the racism and poverty experienced by Black and Mexican workers, as well as the shifty agricultural and hydrological politics of Big Ag in California - as the Boswells and their competitors/allies buy politicians, stack laws and regulations in their favor, and claim flood control as a reason to alter the natural course of rivers and to completely drain the vast Tulare Lake. Best of all, we see how big business really works out West, with the hypocrisy of so-called rugged outdoorsmen (actually pampered CEO's) who incessantly rail against government interference while also taking in millions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies that are meant to help the little guy. This book is immensely informative but does often get tied up in unnecessary details, such as descriptions of petty political shenanigans in the construction of a nearby dam. But the motto of the Boswell clan has been that a whale can't be harpooned if it doesn't come to the surface (a legacy of silence and obfuscation), but Arax and Wartzman have deftly cracked into the wall of secrecy surrounding the Boswells and their often ill-gotten empire, [~doomsdayer520~]
Tremendous historical, political, and social epic.......2004-11-09
The book centers around three generations of Boswells as they migrated from Green County Georgia to Kings County California and became the largest producers of cotton in the world, without becoming a household name.
The book also tells of the natural, social, and political histories of the San Joaquin Valley from the days of indigenous peoples and the first Spanish invaders to the present day.
The epic is a fascinating study of twentieth century American history, society, economics, business, finance, management, politics, public policy, labor relations, mechanization, technology, modernization, and nature.
The more personal stories of family, romance, crime, and punishment read more like a good novel.
Some have found the authors liberally biased, but as a conservative, I found the authors well balanced in their presentations of all sides of the stories.
As others have said, the scope is huge and the research extensive. As someone who was born and raised in Kings County California, I found this heretofor unknown local history to be quite fascinating. Nevertheless, I believe this book will have broad appeal to many readers.
Average customer rating:
- Quick review
- Superb reference
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World Agriculture and the Environment: A Commodity-By-Commodity Guide To Impacts And Practices
Jason Clay
Manufacturer: Island Press
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A History of World Agriculture: From the Neolithic Age to the Current Crisis
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Outgrowing The Earth
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Ecoagriculture: Strategies To Feed The World And Save Wild Biodiversity
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The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World
ASIN: 1559633700 |
Book Description
World Agriculture and the Environment presents a unique assessment of agricultural commodity production and the environmental problems it causes, along with prescriptions for increasing efficiency and reducing damage to natural systems. Drawing on his extensive travel and research in agricultural regions around the world, and employing statistics from a range of authoritative sources including the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, the author examines twenty of the world’s major crops, including beef, coffee, corn, rice, rubber, shrimp, sorghum, tea, and tobacco. For each crop, he offers comparative information including:
• a “fast facts” overview section that summarizes key data for the crop
• main producing and consuming countries
• main types of production
• market trend information and market chain analyses
• major environmental impacts
• management strategies and best practices
• key contacts and references
With maps of major commodity production areas worldwide, the book represents the first truly global portrait of agricultural production patterns and environmental impacts.
Customer Reviews:
Quick review.......2006-03-01
World Agriculture and Environment in my opinion is a very interestig book, in which you can find, besides the basic information of agricultural production, techniques that help to reduce damage to natural systems, and also this book gives important evaluations of modern agriculture and its failure.
Superb reference.......2004-05-18
This is a superb and unique reference. It provides an incredible amount of detail on crops that enter world trade, and their impact on the environment.
The very best thing about this book is that it is not strident and does not blatantly advocate a particular political agenda. It is written in a scientific, objective tone that makes it far more convincing than the rhetorical works. Only when he comes to tobacco (a crop that ruins the environment AND then ruins the consumers) does he use a few value-laden words!
The reader is struck by what a mess the world is in, and how easily we could fix a lot of that. The book provides enormous detail on soil erosion, chemical use, biodiversity reduction, and the rest of our woes, but it presents equal detail on how to prevent those problems. Only a few crops (notably cotton, salmon, chocolate) would be hard to manage well.
Two social themes stand out: first, the very rapid concentration of commodity trade in the hands of a very few firms; second, the degree to which governments subsidize production-at-any-cost as opposed to production-with-environmental-protection. (Subsidizing includes nonlegal subsidies, such as letting the rich get away with breaking environmental laws and dumping huge costs on poorer neighbors.) One cannot escape the conclusion that changing this subsidy structure would fix most of the damage, worldwide.
Environmentalists should think more about subsidies!
Meanwhile, what can a concerned reader do? The book tells how to seek out shade-grown coffee, responsibly raised beef and paper, and so on. It is much harder, at least in the US, to find decently-produced soybeans or corn or wheat, but you can do it. Cotton is a special problem, and the alternatives to it are mostly worse. The hemp advocates will be vocal!
We are in such a mess, and it would be so easy to do so much.... This is not a time to lose hope or give up. By providing the big picture, this book should make every concerned citizen stop and think. The few errors I could spot in the book are trivial ones.
This is an absolute must-read and must-have for anyone who works on problems of production and environment or on problems of world food supply and health.
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Farm Management: Principles and Strategies
Kent D. Olson
Manufacturer: Iowa State Press
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ASIN: 0813804183 |
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Agribusiness and Commodity Risk: Strategies and Management
Manufacturer: Risk Books in association with Rabobank
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ASIN: 1904339107 |
Book Description
Presents an all-encompassing examination on the application of risk management to the evolving global soft commodity markets with the latest and most in-depth analysis on all the issues relevant to the industry such as price risk, production risk, institutional risk and insurance.
Provides a detailed understanding of the application of risk management tools to agribusiness by covering the topic in greater depth than any other title currently available. Enables you to examine the ways in which risks are identified.
Explains the changes in hedging strategies for commodity price risk management brought about by the evolving market.
Topical approach updates you on the most recent changes in legislation and reactions from the industry.
Risks are examined from the point of view of all market participants including producers, processors, consumers, lenders, brokers and end-users.
Presents a unique global perspective that incorporates the views of leading international practitioners, academics and consultants along side up-to-date case studies from around the world.
Additionally covers contract and instrument types, portfolio management, credit risk, commodity financing and much more.
An indispensable guide for commodities processors, traders and brokers; corporates; agricultural lenders; regulatory and research bodies; agricultural insurers; consultants, hedge fund practitioners and climate risk professionals.
Average customer rating:
- a pionner work challenging old agricultural practices
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Plowman's Folly and A Second Look (Conservation Classics)
Edward H. Faulkner
Manufacturer: Island Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
General
| 20th Century
| United States
| Americas
| History
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Soil Science
| Agricultural Sciences
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General
| Agricultural Sciences
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Agronomy
| Agricultural Sciences
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General
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General
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ASIN: 0933280513 |
Book Description
As the ruinous Dust Bowl settled in the early 1940s, agronomist Edward Faulkner dropped what Nature magazine termed "an agricultural bombshell" when he blamed the then universally used moldboard plow for disastrous pillage of the soil. Faulkner's assault on the orthodoxy of his day will stimulate today's farmers to seek out fresh solutions to the problems that plague modern American agriculture. Plowman's Folly is bound together here with its companion volume A Second Look.
Customer Reviews:
a pionner work challenging old agricultural practices.......1998-10-05
This is the pionner book that had set grounds to new agricultural methods of soil management. Decades before direct planting and soil conservation became fashionable, Faulkner challenged the multisecular tradition which stated that plowing the soil was mandatory to any farmer. This book was praised by Louis Bromfield (Out of the Earth), when he launched his agricultural revolution at Malabar Farm.
Average customer rating:
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Natural Resources Management Practices: A Primer
Peter F. Ffolliott ,
Luis A. Bojorquez-Topia , and
Mariano Hernandez-Narvaez
Manufacturer: Blackwell Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Conservation
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Reference
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Look Inside Business Books
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ASIN: 0813809134 |
Book Description
A presentation of the essential issues of natural resource management practices and land use in the 21st century. Topics covered include watershed and water, agroforestry, wildlife, fisheries, outdoor recreation, wilderness, soil conservation, and timber resources. A reference for anyone involved in this field, and a helpful introduction for students. DLC: Natural resources--Management.
Average customer rating:
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Principles of Management in Agribusiness
Kenneth D. Duft
Manufacturer: Prentice Hall College Div
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
Economics
| Business & Investing
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| Agricultural
| Commercial Policy
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| Statistics
| Strategy & Competition
| Systems & Planning
| Systems Analysis
| Teams
| Total Quality Management
| Training
ASIN: 0835955958 |
Average customer rating:
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Introduction to Food and Agribusiness Management
Greg A. Baker ,
Orlen Grunewald , and
William D. Gorman
Manufacturer: Prentice Hall
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
General
| Business & Investing
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ASIN: 0130145777 |
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