World Agriculture and the Environment: A Commodity-By-Commodity Guide To Impacts And Practices

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:

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.

Hungry for Profit: The Agribusiness Threat to Farmers, Food, and the Environment

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Hungry for Profit: The Agribusiness Threat to Farmers, Food, and the Environment
Fred Magdoff , John Bellamy Foster , and Frederick Buttel
Manufacturer: Monthly Review Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1583670165
Release Date: 2000-09-01

Book Description

Millions go hungry every year in both poor and rich nations, yet hundreds of thousands of peasants and farmers continue to be pushed off the land. Applied in increasing volumes, chemical pesticides and synthetic fertilizers deplete the soil, pollute our food and water, and leave crops more vulnerable to pest outbreaks. The new and expanding use of genetically engineered seeds threatens species diversity.

Customer Reviews:

Great overview of the Topic.......2005-12-09

McEvoy (Sen. Jeffords only wrote the foreward) presents an excellent introduction to the topic of sustainable forestry management. There are numerous external references for other sources on specific topics and sample contracts for woodlands owners. McEvoy's very easy and enjoyable writing style make the read quick and interesting. I am ordering his other book on the more technical side of contracting, taxes and estate planning.

Community Forestry in the United States: Learning from the Past, Crafting the Future

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Community Forestry in the United States: Learning from the Past, Crafting the Future
Mark Baker , and Jonathan Kusel
Manufacturer: Island Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1559639849

Book Description

Across the United States, people are developing new relationships with the forest ecosystems on which they depend, with a common goal of improving the health of the land and the well-being of their communities. Practitioners and supporters of what has come to be called community forestry are challenging current approaches to forest management as they seek to end the historical disfranchisement of communities and workers from forest management and the all-too-pervasive trends of long-term disinvestment in ecosystems and human communities that have undermined the health of both.

Book Description

The United States is the world's biggest consumer of natural resources and its biggest polluter. With the U.S. economy expected to grow by 25% in the next decade alone, the costs to Americans-and to everyone else in the world-will increase substantially if we do not find a way to live and work sustainably.

Building on the recommendations of the President's Council for Sustainable Development, researchers at the World Resources Institute have developed a feasible and concrete plan for achieving sustainable development in the United States. Frontiers of Sustainability presents the first practical vision of a sustainable future for the United States and the steps needed to get there.

Authors examine the environmental performance and trends in four key economic sectors: agriculture, electricity generation, transportation, and pulp and paper manufacturing. They map out and explore the implications of potentially dangerous trends and developments, and detail methods for reducing or managing emergent threats. Each chapter sets forth a technologically feasible vision of the future in which the unwanted trends we see unfolding now are reversed.

Book Description

Having surged past the six billion mark, the human population of the twenty-first century is making overwhelming demands on the earth and its forests. Although economic and political considerations once dominated the management of forests and land, in today's crowded world environmental concerns are rapidly emerging as dominant. This book, drawn from experience with the World Commission on Forests and Sustainable Development, presents a concise, accessible view of the current status of forests globally, of demands on them, and of their importance in maintaining a fully functional human habitat. The book also presents a major challenge in planning for land use in a full world where defense of the public interest becomes more and more difficult and demanding. Opening with an examination of forests and the effects of human activities on them, the book then considers the relationship of forests to global warming, agriculture, biotic impoverishment, water resources, and climate. Later chapters discuss the global wood supply, plantation forestry, and forests as a source of energy. The final chapters call for local and global planners to weigh the spiraling competitive demands for forest resources and to redefine what is in the public interest in the context of forests.

Working Forests in the Neotropics: Conservation through Sustainable Management? (Biology and Resource Management Series)

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Working Forests in the Neotropics: Conservation through Sustainable Management? (Biology and Resource Management Series)

Manufacturer: Columbia University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0231129076

Book Description

Neotropical forests sustain a wealth of biodiversity, provide a wide range of ecosystem services and products, and support the livelihoods of millions of people. But is forest management a viable conservation strategy in the tropics? Supporters of sustainable forest management have promoted it as a solution to problems of both biodiversity protection and economic stagnation. Detractors insist that any conservation strategy short of fully protected status is a waste of resources and that forest management actually hastens deforestation. By focusing on a set of critical issues and case studies, this book explores the territory between these positions, highlighting the major factors that contribute to or detract from the chances of achieving forest conservation through sustainable management.

Agriculture and the Environment: Perspectives on Sustainable Rural Development

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Agriculture and the Environment: Perspectives on Sustainable Rural Development

Manufacturer: World Bank
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0821347101

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