Get Your Hands Dirty with These Farming Books

If you Google "organic farming books" or "top farm books," you're likely to develop a slew of children's books with charming illustrations of men in overalls and straw hats talking about raising cows or driving tractors. 

However, there are many farm books available for adults who want to learn more about food and agriculture and how the decisions our farmers make today will affect the world. These fantastic farm books delve into history and science, feature forward-thinking farmers, or spin captivating fiction while teaching readers and providing a diversity of viewpoints on how agriculture has evolved in the modern period.

Please continue reading to know more….

1. We Are What We Eat: A Slow Food Manifesto

Alice Waters, a longstanding supporter of the Slow Food Movement, examines how food shapes our identities. Waters' latest book examines how food has harmed people and the environment and how it may help heal and restore. "How we eat is how we live," she writes in the book's introduction. 

Waters covers America's different food eras, from World War II victory gardens to frozen dinners and fast food, more contemporary farm-to-table efforts, and the virtues of biodiversity and sustainability through her own lived experiences. Above all, the book is a contemplation on how what we eat affects not just ourselves but also the planet and what may be done to effect long-term change.

2. What's Good? A Memoir in Twelve Ingredients

Chef Peter Hoffman, whose New York City's Savoy restaurant helped pioneer farm-to-table cooking, delves into our foods' cultural, historical, and botanical origins. The book is based on his excursions to Union Square Greenmarket. 

He begins his ingredient tour and story with leeks and potatoes, travels through strawberry and garlic season, and finishes with late-season greens like kale and radicchio. He tells personal anecdotes about these crops and chronicles their evolution and the experiences of the farmers and vendors who raise and promote them. Hoffman provides a recipe for home cooks to make with each component at the end of each chapter.

3. The Economics of Sustainable Food

This book examines why economists and policymakers overlook the negative consequences of the global industrial food system, such as starvation, economic losses, and environmental destruction. Nicoletta Batini, the editor, claims that macroeconomic policy has mainly ignored food systems, and she has gathered a collection of essays that offer suggestions for making food more sustainable. 

For example, various authors look into taxing high-carbon-footprint foods, supporting land and sea farming, and providing schools with matching cash to buy local organic vegetables.

4. The Heirloom Gardener: Traditional Plants & Skills for the Modern World

John Forti, historical horticulture and ethnobotanist, honours the value of gardens in the past, present, and future. The Traditional Gardener is a part essay collection. This half gardening guide encourages readers to embrace heirloom seeds and traditions while also acting as a timely reminder to slow down and reconnect with nature.

5. Organic Gardening for Beginners: An Eco-Friendly Guide to Growing Vegetables, Fruits, and Herbs

Want to build an organic garden at home but not know where to begin? This book is an excellent starting point. Lisa Lombardo, a homesteader, teaches how to grow dozens of fruits, veggies, and herbs in sustainable, pesticide-free, and environmentally friendly ways. She also provides a helpful breakdown of the most common insects you'll encounter—both good and bad—and practical advice on assisting the beneficial insects in growing and safely ridding your garden of pests.

6. Toxic Legacy: How the Weedkiller Glyphosate Is Destroying Our Health and the Environment

Stephanie Seneff, an MIT scientist, warns about the hazards of the herbicide glyphosate. Glyphosate, the main ingredient in Roundup, was first patented in 1961 and then re-patented as a weed killer by Monsanto in 1968. 

Seneff discusses glyphosate's use in agriculture and references studies linking the chemical to cancer, kidney failure, birth deformities, infertility, and other ailments. Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, which revealed the environmental repercussions of pesticide use, has been likened to the novel.

7. Urban Farmers: The Now (and how) of Growing Food in the City

According to some projections, cities will eat 80 per cent of all food by 2050. As a result, future generations will rely heavily on urban farmers to feed them. 

Photographer Valery Rizzo and journalist Mónica R. Goya present a wide range of urban agriculture models in this book, including rooftop gardens and vineyards, community gardens, and underground mushroom farms. It also provides helpful hints for those interested in urban gardening, beekeeping, composting, natural dyes, and other topics.