Environment Food

Life on earth is facing unprecedented challenges from global warming, war, and mass extinctions. The plight of seeds is a less visible but no less fundamental threat to our survival. Seeds are at the heart of the planet's life-support systems. Their power to regenerate and adapt are essential to maintaining our food supply and our ability to cope with a changing climate. Environmental journalist Claire Hope Cummings exposes the stories behind the rise of industrial agriculture and plant biotechnology, the fall of public interest science, and the folly of patenting seeds.

The family farm lies at the heart of our national identity, and yet its future is in peril. Rick Hammond grew up on a farm, and for 40 years he has raised cattle and crops on his wife's fifth-generation homestead in Nebraska, in hopes of passing it on to their four children. But as the handoff nears, their small family farm - and their entire way of life - are under siege.

By 2030, experts predict two-thirds of people living on this planet will not have enough water, a situation expected to result in the deaths of millions and an unprecedented rise in military conflicts. Can we as individuals hope to reverse these dire predictions? Award-winning author and water activist Florencia Ramirez believes we can if our conservation efforts focus on the 70 percent of freshwater flowing to the fields and ranches that grow our food. Eat Less Water takes the listener on a journey to meet America's food producers growing food with less water.

In 2005, the United States imported 12 billion dollars' worth of seafood, nearly double what we had imported 10 years earlier. During that same period, our seafood exports rose by a third. In American Catch, our foremost fish expert Paul Greenberg looks to New York oysters, gulf shrimp, and Alaskan salmon to reveal how it came to be that 91 percent of the seafood Americans eat is foreign.

Overfishing. For the world's oceans, it's long been a worrisome problem with few answers. But as older fishing fleets retire and new technologies develop, a better, more sustainable way to farm this popular protein has emerged to profoundly shift the balance. The Blue Revolution tells the story of the recent transformation of commercial fishing: an encouraging change from maximizing volume through unrestrained wild hunting to maximizing value through controlled harvesting and farming.

The book is a firsthand account of Dr. Hannah Jaicks’ journey through western Montana's ranching landscapes to showcase the stories of ranchers and affiliated groups who are pioneering strategies for reducing conflicts with wildlife, while also stewarding the landscape.

In this revelatory work, Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson shows how food affects our moral selves, our health, and the environment. It raises questions to make us conscious of the decisions behind every bite we take: What effect does eating animals have on our land, water, even global warming? What are the results of farming practices - debeaking chickens and separating calves from their mothers - on animals and humans? How does the health of animals affect the health of our planet and our bodies?

The story of dairying in Wisconsin is the story of how our very landscape and way of life were created. By making cows the center of our farm life and learning how to care for them, our ancestors launched a revolution that changed much more than the way farmers earned their living - it changed us. In Creating Dairyland, journalist, oral historian, and former dairyman Ed Janus opens the pages of the fascinating story of Wisconsin dairy farming.

Low level radiation is all around us. Based on years of research, the author has gathered medical data that clearly shows that certain foods and supplements have protective properties, which can safeguard you from low level radiation. The author presents theories on how these foods stave off the effects of radiation and suggests recipes that maximize their protective powers in our increasingly toxic post-Fukushima world.

Have you ever wondered who picked your Fairtrade banana? Or why we can buy British strawberries in April? How far do you think your green beans travelled to get to your plate? And where do all the wonky carrots go? Above all, how do we stop worrying about our food choices and start making decisions that make a difference? In an effort to make sense of the complex food system we are all part of, Louise Gray decides to track the stories of our five-a-day, from farm to fruit bowl, and discover the impact that growing fruits and vegetables has on the planet.

With predictions of a human population of more than nine billion by the middle of this century and 11 billion by 2100, we stand at a crossroads in our agricultural evolution. In this clear and engaging book, wildlife biologist John M. Marzluff takes a personal approach to sustainable agriculture. He travels to farms and ranches across North and Central America, including a Nebraska corn and soybean farm, California vineyards, cattle ranches in Montana, and small sustainable farms in Costa Rica, to understand the unique challenges and solutions to sustainable food production.

Neither an advocate nor a critic of cultured meat, Benjamin Aldes Wurgaft spent five years researching the phenomenon. In Meat Planet, he reveals how debates about lab-grown meat reach beyond debates about food, examining the links between appetite, growth, and capitalism. Could satiating the growing appetite for meat actually lead to our undoing? Are we simply using one technology to undo the damage caused by another? Like all problems in our food system, the meat problem is not merely a problem of production. It is intrinsically social and political.

Grassroots Rising is a passionate call to action for the global body politic, providing practical solutions for how to survive - and thrive - in catastrophic times. Author Ronnie Cummins aims to educate and inspire citizens worldwide to organize and become active participants in preventing ecological collapse. This audiobook offers a blueprint for building and supercharging a grassroots regeneration movement based on consumer activism, farmer innovation, political change, and regenerative finance.

Michael P. Hoffmann, Carrie Koplinka-Loehr, and Danielle L. Eiseman offer an eye-opening journey through a complete menu of before-dinner drinks and salads; main courses and sides; and coffee and dessert. Along the way they examine the escalating changes occurring to the flavors of spices and teas, the yields of wheat, the vitamins in rice, and the price of vanilla. Their story is rounded out with a primer on the global food system, the causes and impacts of climate change, and what we can all do.

From Michael Pollan to locavores, Whole Foods to farmers' markets, today cooks and foodies alike are paying more attention than ever before to the history of the food they bring into their kitchens - and especially to vegetables. Whether it’s an heirloom tomato, curled cabbage, or succulent squash, from a farmers' market or a backyard plot, the humble vegetable offers more than just nutrition - it also represents a link with long tradition of farming and gardening, nurturing and breeding. In this charming new book, those veggies finally get their due.

Take a walk through the climate regions of the world and discover the effect of climate change on plants and how plants are coping in changing climatic conditions. As extreme weather conditions take over our planet, what will be their effect on plants? How can plants cope with these changing conditions? Which plants already survive in extreme and changing environments?

British food has changed remarkably in the last half century. As we have become wealthier and more discerning, our food has Europeanised (pizza is children's favourite food) and internationalised (we eat the world's cuisines), yet our food culture remains fragmented, a mix of mass 'ultra-processed' substances alongside food as varied and good as anywhere else on the planet. This book takes stock of the UK food system: where it comes from, what we eat, its impact, fragilities and strengths. It is a book on the politics of food.

Enough is a practical explanation of the Planetary Health Diet's research, allowing everyone to understand the science and to adopt its recommendations in our daily lives. The PHD specifies the food groups we should be eating. But what does a diet composed of, for example, 30% carbohydrates really look like? Which carbs, exactly? The diet is largely plant-based but does encompass meat and fish - but how many servings?

Mals, Italy, has long been known as the breadbasket of the Tyrol. But recently the tiny town became known for something else entirely. A Precautionary Tale tells us why, introducing readers to an unlikely group of activists and a forward-thinking mayor who came together to ban pesticides in Mals by a referendum vote, making it the first place on Earth to accomplish such a feat, and a model for other towns and regions to follow. For hundreds of years, the people of Mals had cherished their traditional foodways and kept their local agriculture organic. Their town had become a mecca for tourists drawn by the alpine landscape, the rural and historic character of the villages, and the fine breads, wines, cheeses, herbs, vegetables, and the other traditional foods they produced.

Listeners will go deep into a Vermont sugar bush and its web of plastic tubes, mainline valves, and collection tanks. They will visit sugarhouses crammed with gas evaporators and reverse-osmosis machines. And they will witness encounters between sugar makers and the tourists eager to invest Vermont with mythological fantasies of rural simplicity.