Farming in Nature's Image: An Ecological Approach To Agriculture

by Judy Soule, Jon K. Piper, Jon Piper

ÿFarming in Nature's Image provides, for the first time, a detailed look into the pioneering work of The Land Institute, the leading educational and research organization for sustainable agriculture.The authors draw on case studies, hands-on experience, and research results to explain the applications of a new system of agriculture based on one unifying that farms should mimic the ecosystems in which they exist. They present both theoretical and practical information, a review of the environmental degradation resulting from current farming practices a critical evaluation of the attempts to solve these problems a detailed description of the ecosystem perspective and the proposed new agricultural system a case study illustrating how this new system could be applied to temperate grain production using perennial seed crops and the prairie as a model an examination of the potential savings in energy and water use, as well as potential contributions to ecological experiments and yield analysis work from The Land Institute.Written in clear, non-technical language, this book will be of great interest to soil and agricultural scientists, academics, policymakers, environmentalists, and other concerned with finding long-range solutions to agricultural problems.

Genres: Agriculture, Nonfiction

305 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 1991

Reviews

[Donald · Rating 5 out of 5]

Upshot: The Land Institute is working, long-term, on developing polycultural perennial grains. That means essentially turing some fo the basic permaculture concepts into grain farming, and developing grain varieties that are perennial. Theoretically this flies in the face of basic agriculture, but they have reason to believe it's possible. And if it IS possible, then everything's gonna be just fine.

[Hess · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sadly, not what I was looking for. Published in 1992, this book offers a lit review of the work being carried out by the Land Institute at that time. The Land Institute is a US organisation, focused primarily on perennial intercropping and polyculture in a prairie ecosystem. There is a good discussion of tropical ecosystems as well, but they are not the focus of the book - nor are the temperate ecosystems from Europe.

The book is timely for the period, providing an exhaustive overview of US-agribusiness and policy, the authors' hopes for polyculture & permaculture as a long-term sustainable alternative to "spray and pray monoculture", early research into perennial grain yields per acre, the challenges that the authors foresee potentially arising from polyculture, the authors' thoughts on American's willingness to switch to a wider diet of foods, and the immediate next steps for the Land Institute in terms of direction and research. This is also where the book shows its age - anyone with even the slightest interest in soil science will be bored stiff by the information that was new-at-the-time but is now common knowledge.

A remarkable book that would have been a 4-star read in 1992. For a more recent review of this topic, I would recommend For the Love of Soil by Nicole Masters.

[Richard Miller · Rating 2 out of 5]

Just started, but a fine companion to Cadillac Desert