[PDF] They Saved The Crops eBook

Author : Don Mitchell
Publisher : University of Georgia Press
Page : 574 pages
File Size : 26,11 MB
Release : 2012
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 0820341754

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At the outset of World War II, California agriculture seemed to be on the cusp of change. Many Californians, reacting to the ravages of the Great Depression, called for a radical reorientation of the highly exploitative labor relations that had allowed the state to become such a productive farming frontier. But with the importation of the first braceros—“guest workers” from Mexico hired on an “emergency” basis after the United States entered the war—an even more intense struggle ensued over how agriculture would be conducted in the state. Esteemed geographer Don Mitchell argues that by delineating the need for cheap, flexible farm labor as a problem and solving it via the importation of relatively disempowered migrant workers, an alliance of growers and government actors committed the United States to an agricultural system that is, in important respects, still with us. They Saved the Crops is a theoretically rich and stylistically innovative account of grower rapaciousness, worker militancy, rampant corruption, and bureaucratic bias. Mitchell shows that growers, workers, and officials confronted a series of problems that shaped—and were shaped by—the landscape itself. For growers, the problem was finding the right kind of labor at the right price at the right time. Workers struggled for survival and attempted to win power in the face of economic exploitation and unremitting violence. Bureaucrats tried to harness political power to meet the demands of, as one put it, “the people whom we serve.” Drawing on a deep well of empirical materials from archives up and down the state, Mitchell's account promises to be the definitive book about California agriculture in the turbulent decades of the mid-twentieth century.

Author : Don Mitchell
Publisher : University of Georgia Press
Page : 574 pages
File Size : 10,97 MB
Release : 2012-04-01
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 082034401X

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At the outset of World War II, California agriculture seemed to be on the cusp of change. Many Californians, reacting to the ravages of the Great Depression, called for a radical reorientation of the highly exploitative labor relations that had allowed the state to become such a productive farming frontier. But with the importation of the first braceros—“guest workers” from Mexico hired on an “emergency” basis after the United States entered the war—an even more intense struggle ensued over how agriculture would be conducted in the state. Esteemed geographer Don Mitchell argues that by delineating the need for cheap, flexible farm labor as a problem and solving it via the importation of relatively disempowered migrant workers, an alliance of growers and government actors committed the United States to an agricultural system that is, in important respects, still with us. They Saved the Crops is a theoretically rich and stylistically innovative account of grower rapaciousness, worker militancy, rampant corruption, and bureaucratic bias. Mitchell shows that growers, workers, and officials confronted a series of problems that shaped—and were shaped by—the landscape itself. For growers, the problem was finding the right kind of labor at the right price at the right time. Workers struggled for survival and attempted to win power in the face of economic exploitation and unremitting violence. Bureaucrats tried to harness political power to meet the demands of, as one put it, “the people whom we serve.” Drawing on a deep well of empirical materials from archives up and down the state, Mitchell’s account promises to be the definitive book about California agriculture in the turbulent decades of the mid-twentieth century.

Author : Gabriel Thompson
Publisher : Verso Books
Page : 321 pages
File Size : 50,77 MB
Release : 2017-05-16
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 1786632209

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Lives from an invisible community—the migrant farmworkers of the United States The Grapes of Wrath brought national attention to the condition of California’s migrant farmworkers in the 1930s. Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers’ grape and lettuce boycotts captured the imagination of the United States in the 1960s and ’70s. Yet today, the stories of the more than 800,000 men, women, and children working in California’s fields—one third of the nation’s agricultural work force—are rarely heard, despite the persistence of wage theft, dangerous working conditions, and uncertain futures. This book of oral histories makes the reality of farm work visible in accounts of hardship, bravery, solidarity, and creativity in California’s fields, as real people struggle to win new opportunities for future generations. Among the narrators: Maricruz, a single mother fired from a packing plant after filing a sexual assault complaint against her supervisor. Roberto, a vineyard laborer in the scorching Coachella Valley who became an advocate for more humane working conditions after his teenage son almost died of heatstroke. Oscar, an elementary school teacher in Salinas who wants to free his students from a life in the fields, the fate that once awaited him as a child.

Author : Ben Hartman
Publisher : Chelsea Green Publishing
Page : 274 pages
File Size : 42,55 MB
Release : 2017
Category : Gardening
ISBN : 1603586997

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At Clay Bottom Farm, author Ben Hartman and staff practice kaizen, or continuous improvement, cutting out more waste--of time, labor, space, money, and more--every year and aligning their organic production more tightly with customer demand. Applied alongside other lean principles originally developed by the Japanese auto industry, the end result has been increased profits and less work. In this field-guide companion to his award-winning first book, The Lean Farm, Hartman shows market vegetable growers in even more detail how Clay Bottom Farm implements lean thinking in every area of their work, including using kanbans, or replacement signals, to maximize land use; germination chambers to reduce defect waste; and right-sized machinery to save money and labor and increase efficiency. From finding land and assessing infrastructure needs to selling perfect produce at the farmers market, The Lean Farm Guide to Growing Vegetables digs deeper into specific, tested methods for waste-free farming that not only help farmers become more successful but make the work more enjoyable. These methods include: Using Japanese paper pot transplanters Building your own germinating chambers Leaning up your greenhouse Making and applying simple composts Using lean techniques for pest and weed control Creating Heijunka, or load-leveling calendars for efficient planning Farming is not static, and improvement requires constant change. The Lean Farm Guide to Growing Vegetables offers strategies for farmers to stay flexible and profitable even in the face of changing weather and markets. Much more than a simple exercise in cost-cutting, lean farming is about growing better, not cheaper, food--the food your customers want.

Author : Leon F. Hesser
Publisher : Leon Hesser
Page : 296 pages
File Size : 22,43 MB
Release : 2006
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9781930754904

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The Man Who Fed the World provides a loving and respectful portrait of one of America's greatest heroes. Nobel Peace Prize recipient for averting hunger and famine, Dr. Norman Borlang is credited with saving hundreds of millions of lives from starvation-more than any other person in history? Loved by millions around the world, Dr. Borlang is recognized as one of the most influential men of the twentieth century.

Author : Curtis Allen Stone
Publisher : New Society Publishers
Page : 306 pages
File Size : 13,30 MB
Release : 2015-12-14
Category : Gardening
ISBN : 1771421916

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There are twenty million acres of lawns in North America. In their current form, these unproductive expanses of grass represent a significant financial and environmental cost. However, viewed through a different lens, they can also be seen as a tremendous source of opportunity. Access to land is a major barrier for many people who want to enter the agricultural sector, and urban and suburban yards have huge potential for would-be farmers wanting to become part of this growing movement. The Urban Farmer is a comprehensive, hands-on, practical manual to help you learn the techniques and business strategies you need to make a good living growing high-yield, high-value crops right in your own backyard (or someone else's). Major benefits include: Low capital investment and overhead costs Reduced need for expensive infrastructure Easy access to markets Growing food in the city means that fresh crops may travel only a few blocks from field to table, making this innovative approach the next logical step in the local food movement. Based on a scalable, easily reproduced business model, The Urban Farmer is your complete guide to minimizing risk and maximizing profit by using intensive production in small leased or borrowed spaces. Curtis Stone is the owner/operator of Green City Acres, a commercial urban farm growing vegetables for farmers markets, restaurants, and retail outlets. During his slower months, Curtis works as a public speaker, teacher, and consultant, sharing his story to inspire a new generation of farmers.

Author : Gary Paul Nabhan
Publisher : Island Press
Page : 261 pages
File Size : 33,76 MB
Release : 2012-02-13
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 1597265179

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The future of our food depends on tiny seeds in orchards and fields the world over. In 1943, one of the first to recognize this fact, the great botanist Nikolay Vavilov, lay dying of starvation in a Soviet prison. But in the years before Stalin jailed him as a scapegoat for the country’s famines, Vavilov had traveled over five continents, collecting hundreds of thousands of seeds in an effort to outline the ancient centers of agricultural diversity and guard against widespread hunger. Now, another remarkable scientist—and vivid storyteller—has retraced his footsteps. In Where Our Food Comes From, Gary Paul Nabhan weaves together Vavilov’s extraordinary story with his own expeditions to Earth’s richest agricultural landscapes and the cultures that tend them. Retracing Vavilov’s path from Mexico and the Colombian Amazon to the glaciers of the Pamirs in Tajikistan, he draws a vibrant portrait of changes that have occurred since Vavilov’s time and why they matter. In his travels, Nabhan shows how climate change, free trade policies, genetic engineering, and loss of traditional knowledge are threatening our food supply. Through discussions with local farmers, visits to local outdoor markets, and comparison of his own observations in eleven countries to those recorded in Vavilov’s journals and photos, Nabhan reveals just how much diversity has already been lost. But he also shows what resilient farmers and scientists in many regions are doing to save the remaining living riches of our world. It is a cruel irony that Vavilov, a man who spent his life working to foster nutrition, ultimately died from lack of it. In telling his story, Where Our Food Comes From brings to life the intricate relationships among culture, politics, the land, and the future of the world’s food.

Author : John Warren
Publisher : CABI
Page : 193 pages
File Size : 28,47 MB
Release : 2015-04-24
Category : Technology & Engineering
ISBN : 1780645082

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Have you ever wondered why we eat wheat, rice, potatoes and cassava? Why we routinely domesticate foodstuffs with the power to kill us, or why we chose almonds over acorns? Answering all these questions and more in a readable and friendly style, this book takes you on a journey through our history with crop plants. Arranged into recurrent themes in plant domestication, this book documents the history and biology of over 50 crops, including cereals, spices, legumes, fruits and cash crops such as chocolate, tobacco and rubber.

Author : J.E. Bradshaw
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
Page : 304 pages
File Size : 29,27 MB
Release : 2010-09-11
Category : Science
ISBN : 0387927654

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It is important to include Tuber and Root Crops in the Handbook of Plant Breeding. They include starchy staple crops that are of increasing importance for global food security and relief of poverty, important millennium goals for the United Nations. Indeed, 2008 was the UN International Year of the Potato in recognition of this role of the potato as the world’s third most important food crop after wheat and rice. The other major staples are cassava, sweetpotato and yam. Together they occupy about 50 million hectares, with production at 640 million metric tons, of which 70% is in developing countries. In total there are more than 30 species of Root and Tuber Crops grown in the world today. Given the content of other volumes in the series, it makes sense to include sugar and fodder beets; swedes and turnips; and minor root and tuber crops so that the book series is as complete as possible. Like the other volumes in the series, this one will present information on the latest in applied plant breeding using the current advances in the field, from an efficient use of genetic resources to the impact of biotechnology in plant breeding. Seven crop specific chapters are proposed, together with an introduction to this diverse set of plant species. Outstanding scientists for each crop species are proposed as senior authors, who may invite co-authors to contribute part of a chapter. In order to increase the overall acceptance of the volume, balance will be sought with authors from different research groups/countries who will be asked to contribute and collaborate where appropriate. The book should be of interest to researchers in both academic and industrial settings, and in both developed and developing countries, as well as students and teachers of plant breeding. It is currently extremely important to educate and train a new generation of plant breeders given the challenges faced by humankind in producing more food for an expanding global population during a period of environmental (including climate) change.

Author : Carey McWilliams
Publisher : Univ of California Press
Page : 365 pages
File Size : 50,42 MB
Release : 2000-04-15
Category : History
ISBN : 0520925181

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This book was the first broad exposé of the social and environmental damage inflicted by the growth of corporate agriculture in California. Factories in the Field—together with the work of Dorothea Lange, Paul Taylor, and John Steinbeck—dramatizes the misery of the dust bowl migrants hoping to find work in California agriculture. McWilliams starts with the scandals of the Spanish land grant purchases, and continues on to examine the experience of the various ethnic groups that have provided labor for California's agricultural industry—Chinese, Japanese, Mexicans, Filipinos, Armenians—the strikes, and the efforts to organize labor unions