The emergent agriculture: farming, sustainability and the return of the local economy

Long embraced by corporations who are driven only by the desire for profit, industrial agriculture wastes precious resources and spews millions of tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere each year, exacerbating climate change and threatening the very earth and water on which we depend. However, this dominant system, from which Americans obtain most of their food, is being slowly supplanted by a new paradigm. The Emergent Agriculture is a collection of fourteen thematic essays on sustainability viewed through the lens of farming. Arguing that industrial food production is incompatible with the realities of nature, science, and ethics, this lyrical narrative makes the case for a locally based food system which is: stable in the face of economic uncertainty, resilient in the face of environmental variability, grounded in stewardship of the land, on attaching value to food and the craft involved in producing it, and on respecting the dignity of farmers, consumers and livestock.