Best Sustainable Agriculture Books
Here you will get Best Sustainable Agriculture Books For you.This is an up-to-date list of recommended books.
1. 40 Projects for Building Your Backyard Homestead: A Hands-on, Step-by-Step Sustainable-Living Guide (Creative Homeowner) Fences, Chicken Coops, Sheds, Gardening, and More for Becoming Self-Sufficient
Author: by David Toht
Creative Homeowner
English
256 pages
Learn all about how to build sheds, feeders, fences, and other backyard structures to enhance your sustainable living! Garden structures: Raised beds, planters and arbors, self-watering beds, grow-light stand, soil blocks Fences and pens: Fence post basics, picket fence, solar electric fence, installing and stretching fences, hen pen and hurdle, gates, PVC hen pen Housing chickens: Basics for housing chickens, building a coop and run, complete material and cutting lists, exploded views, building an A-frame chicken tractor Building sheds: Basics for building, goat shed, saltbox garden shed, backyard-homestead shop, roofing alternatives Solar and wind power: Compressor and gearbox windmills, how solar works, erecting a windmill, installing a solar power system Aquaponics and hydroponics: Understanding aquaponics, understanding hydroponics, basics of a DIY aquaponic system, how to install a hydroponic system Building beehives: Langstroth beehive, Warr beehive, top-bar beehive (aka the Kenyan or Tanzanian beehive), step-by-step building instructions and exploded views Plumbing and wiring: Plumbing basics, ground-fault circuit interrupters, freeze-proof watering options, outdoor wiring, supplemental lighting A companion volume to Backyard Homesteading, 40 Projects for Building Your Backyard Homestead provides details on how to build more than 40 projects to enhance your sustainable living.
2. Mini Farming: Self-Sufficiency on 1/4 Acre
Author: by Brett L. Markham
Skyhorse
English
240 pages
Start a mini farm on a quarter acre or less, provide 85 percent of the food for a family of four and earn an income. Mini Farming describes a holistic approach to small-area farming that will show you how to produce 85 percent of an average family’s food on just a quarter acreand earn $10,000 in cash annually while spending less than half the time that an ordinary job would require.
Even if you have never been a farmer or a gardener, this book covers everything you need to know to get started: buying and saving seeds, starting seedlings, establishing raised beds, soil fertility practices, composting, dealing with pest and disease problems, crop rotation, farm planning, and much more.
Because self-sufciency is the objective, subjects such as raising backyard chickens and home canning are also covered along with numerous methods for keeping costs down and production high. Materials, tools, and techniques are detailed with photographs, tables, diagrams, and illustrations.
3. The Backyard Homestead: Produce all the food you need on just a quarter acre!
Author: by Carleen Madigan
Storey Publishing, LLC
English
368 pages
This comprehensive guide to homesteading provides all the information you need to grow and preserve a sustainable harvest of grains and vegetables; raise animals for meat, eggs, and dairy; and keep honey bees for your sweeter days. With easy-to-follow instructions on canning, drying, and pickling, you’ll enjoy your backyard bounty all winter long.
Also available in this series: The Backyard Homestead Seasonal Planner, The Backyard Homestead Book of Building Projects, The Backyard Homestead Guide to Raising Farm Animals, and The Backyard Homestead Book of Kitchen Know-How.
4. Polyface Designs: A Comprehensive Construction Guide for Scalable Farming Infrastruture
Author: by Joel Salatin
English
568 pages
1733686614
A comprehensive how-to manual of Polyface Farms signature designs-with tips, tricks, and a half century of lessons learned through trial and errorHave you wondered how to build the Polyface broiler shelter, or the dolly to move it, or an Eggmobile, Gobbledygo or Shademobile?
For folks getting started, folks adding enterprises, or folks wanting a cheaper bootstrap way to build portable livestock infrastructure, Polyface Designs has all the diagrams and do-it-yourself building specifications. Joel Salatin wrote the text and Polyface former apprentice and engineer extraordinaire Chris Slattery did the drawings.
Ultimately practical, the book includes how to build a corral, a home-made head gate and even how to select the right axle for your project. Square footage requirements for the deep bedding hay shed and area advice for pig pastures make this the definitive repository for a lifetime of Polyface experimentation.
A massive volume, its 568 pages are in full color and beautiful enough to be a coffee table book even though youll use it in your shop. Dont let the cover price scare you; one building tip can more than save the price of the book.
5. The Beginner's Guide to Raising Chickens: How to Raise a Happy Backyard Flock
Author: by Anne Kuo
Rockridge Press
English
192 pages
A beginner’s guide to ruling the roost and raising happy backyard chickens The Beginner’s Guide to Raising Chickens makes it easy to start keeping these surprisingly smart birds right in your own backyard. From constructing coops to rearing chicks, you’ll learn everything you need to know to make sure your chickens stay happy and healthy all year round.
Which breed of chicken is right for you? What’s the best bedding material? What sort of feed should you use? Expert chicken keeper Anne Kuo answers these questionsand many othersin this fun and friendly reference book that will get you excited to raise your new feathered friends.
This book on raising chickens guides you through: Getting from the chicken to the eggFind out how to raise chicks, keep your birds safe from predators, introduce new birds to the flock, and more. Creating a custom coopBuild the perfect home for raising chickens with detailed backyard coop construction guides.
Expert care adviceLearn how to identify different behaviors in your chicken, help solve egg shortages, and navigate a range of potential surprises with confidence. Get your first flock started successfully with The Beginner’s Guide to Raising Chickens.
6. Mushrooming without Fear: The Beginner's Guide to Collecting Safe and Delicious Mushrooms
Author: by Alexander Schwab
English
128 pages
1602391602
Novices eager to collect tasty wild mushrooms will find this unique guide invaluable. Unlike others, it focuses only on those types that are both safe to eat and delicious. Most important, it presents the eight rules of mushroom gathering in a straightforward fashionincluding Never, never take a mushroom with gills and If a mushroom smells rotten, it is rotten.
Among the many mushrooms covered are the cep; the red-cracked, larch, bay, and birch boletes; hen of the woods, chanterelle, trumpet chanterelle, hedgehog fungus, common puffball, horn of plenty, and cauliflower mushroom. Each is identified with several color photographs and identification checklist, and there’s also information on mushroom season, handling, storage, and cooking, complete with recipes.
7. Restoration Agriculture
Author: by Mark Shepard
Acres U.S.A.
English
344 pages
Around the globe most people get their calories from annual agriculture – plants that grow fast for one season, produce lots of seeds, then die. Every single human society that has relied on annual crops for staple foods has collapsed.
Restoration Agriculture explains how we can have all of the benefits of natural, perennial ecosystems and create agricultural systems that imitate nature in form and function while still providing for our food, building, fuel and many other needs – in your own backyard, farm or ranch.
This book, based on real-world practices, presents an alternative to the agriculture system of eradication and offers exciting hope for our future.
8. Eat Like a Fish: My Adventures Farming the Ocean to Fight Climate Change
Author: by Bren Smith
Vintage
English
320 pages
JAMES BEARD AWARD WINNER IACP Cookbook Award finalistIn the face of apocalyptic climate change, a former fisherman shares a bold and hopeful new vision for saving the planet: farming the ocean. Here Bren Smithpioneer of regenerative ocean agricultureintroduces the world to a groundbreaking solution to the global climate crisis.
A genre-defining climate memoir, Eat Like a Fish interweaves Smith’s own lifefrom sailing the high seas aboard commercial fishing trawlers to developing new forms of ocean farming to surfing the frontiers of the food movementwith actionable food policy and practical advice on ocean farming.
Written with the humor and swagger of a fisherman telling a late-night tale, it is a powerful story of environmental renewal, and a must-read guide to saving our oceans, feeding the world, andby creating new jobs up and down the coastsputting working class Americans back to work.
9. The Backyard Homestead Seasonal Planner: What to Do & When to Do It in the Garden, Orchard, Barn, Pasture & Equipment Shed
Author: by Ann Larkin Hansen
Storey Publishing, LLC
English
208 pages
This hardworking addition to the best-selling Backyard Homestead series offers expert advice on what tasks to do around your farm and when to do them no matter where on the planet you call home. Author Ann Larkin Hansen sets the priorities for each area of the farm, including the barn, garden, orchard, field, pasture, and woodlot.
For every critical turn of the year (12 in all), Hansen provides an at-a-glance to-do list along with tips and a more in-depth discussion of key topics for the season. Easy-reference charts, checklists, and record-keeping sections help you keep track of it all.
Also available in this series: The Backyard Homestead, The Backyard Homestead Book of Building Projects, The Backyard Homestead Guide to Raising Farm Animals, and The Backyard Homestead Book of Kitchen Know-How.
10. Dirt to Soil: One Family’s Journey into Regenerative Agriculture
Author: by Gabe Brown
1603587632
Chelsea Green Publishing
English
“A regenerative no-till pioneer.”NBC News “We need to reintegrate livestock and crops on our farms and ranches, and Gabe Brown shows us how to do it well.”Temple Grandin, author of Animals in Translation See Gabe Brownauthor and farmerin the Netflix documentary Kiss the Ground Gabe Brown didn’t set out to change the world when he first started working alongside his father-in-law on the family farm in North Dakota.
But as a series of weather-related crop disasters put Brown and his wife, Shelly, in desperate financial straits, they started making bold changes to their farm. Brownin an effort to simply survivebegan experimenting with new practices he’d learned about from reading and talking with innovative researchers and ranchers.
As he and his family struggled to keep the farm viable, they found themselves on an amazing journey into a new type of farming: regenerative agriculture. Brown dropped the use of most of the herbicides, insecticides, and synthetic fertilizers that are a standard part of conventional agriculture.
11. Farm Anatomy: The Curious Parts and Pieces of Country Life
Author: by Julia Rothman
Storey Publishing, LLC
English
224 pages
Learn the difference between a farrow and a barrow, and what distinguishes a weanling from a yearling. Country and city mice alike will delight in Julia Rothman’s charming illustrated guide to the curious parts and pieces of rural living. Dissecting everything from the shapes of squash varieties to how a barn is constructed and what makes up a beehive to crop rotation patterns, Rothman gives a richly entertaining tour of the quirky details of country life.
Also available in this series: Nature Anatomy, Nature Anatomy Notebook, Ocean Anatomy, and Food Anatomy.
12. The Market Gardener: A Successful Grower's Handbook for Small-Scale Organic Farming
Author: by Severine Von Tscharner Fleming
New Society Publishers
English
224 pages
Grow better not bigger with proven low-tech, human-scale, biointensive farming methods Making a living wage farming without big capital outlay or acreages may be closer than you think.Growing on just 1. 5 acres, Jean-Martin and Maude-Helene feed more than 200 families through their thriving CSA and seasonal market stands.
The secret of their success is the low-tech, high-yield production methods they’ve developed by focusing on growing better rather than growing bigger, making their operation more lucrative and viable in the process. The Market Gardener is a compendium of proven horticultural techniques and innovative growing methods.
This complete guide is packed with practical information on: Setting-up a micro-farm by designing biologically intensive cropping systems, all with negligible capital outlay; Farming without a tractor and minimizing fossil fuel inputs through the use of the best hand tools, appropriate machinery and minimum tillage practices; Growing mixed vegetables systematically with attention to weed and pest management, crop yields, harvest periods and pricing approaches.
13. Farming While Black: Soul Fire Farm’s Practical Guide to Liberation on the Land
Author: by Leah Penniman
English
368 pages
1603587616
James Beard Foundation Leadership Award 2019: Leah Penniman Choice Reviews, Outstanding Academic Title “An extraordinary book… Part agricultural guide, part revolutionary manifesto”-VOGUE In 1920, 14 percent of all land-owning US farmers were black. Today less than 2 percent of farms are controlled by black peoplea loss of over 14 million acres and the result of discrimination and dispossession.
While farm management is among the whitest of professions, farm labor is predominantly brown and exploited, and people of color disproportionately live in food apartheid neighborhoods and suffer from diet-related illness. The system is built on stolen land and stolen labor and needs a redesign.
Farming While Black is the first comprehensive how to guide for aspiring African-heritage growers to reclaim their dignity as agriculturists and for all farmers to understand the distinct, technical contributions of African-heritage people to sustainable agriculture. At Soul Fire Farm, author Leah Penniman co-created the Black and Latinx Farmers Immersion (BLFI) program as a container for new farmers to share growing skills in a culturally relevant and supportive environment led by people of color.
14. The Regenerative Grower's Guide to Garden Amendments: Using Locally Sourced Materials to Make Mineral and Biological Extracts and Ferments
Author: by Nigel Palmer
English
224 pages
1603589880
Revitalize your gardenand go beyond compostby making your own biologically diverse inoculants and mineral-rich amendments using leaf mold, weeds, eggshells, bones, and other materials available for little or no cost! In The Regenerative Grower’s Guide to Garden Amendments, experimental gardener and author Nigel Palmer provides practical, detailed instructions that are accessible to every grower who wants to achieve a truly sustainable garden ecosystemall while enjoying better results at a fraction of the cost of commercial fertilizer products.
These recipes go beyond fertilizer replacement, resulting in greater soil biological activity and mineral availability. They also increase pest and disease resistance, yields, and nutrient density. Recipes include: Extracting nutrients from plant residues using simple rainwater techniques Extracting minerals from bones and shells using vinegar Fermenting plant juices and fish Culturing indigenous microorganisms (IMO) Inspired by the work of many innovative traditional agricultural pioneers, especially Cho Ju-Young (founder of the Korean Natural Farming method), The Regenerative Grower’s Guide to Garden Amendments also includes a primer on plant-soil interaction, instructions for conducting a soil test, and guidance on compost, cover cropping, mulching, measuring the quality of fruits and vegetables using a refractometer, and other aspects of sustainable gardeningmaking it a must-have resource for any serious grower.
15. The New Organic Grower, 3rd Edition: A Master's Manual of Tools and Techniques for the Home and Market Gardener, 30th Anniversary Edition
Author: by Eliot Coleman
Chelsea Green Publishing
English
304 pages
Updated for its 30th anniversary edition; [This book] remains as relevant as ever. New York Times Book Review Since its original publication in 1989, The New Organic Grower has been one of the most important farming books available, with pioneer Eliot Coleman leading the charge in the organic movement in the United States.
Now fully illustrated and updated, this 30th Anniversary Edition is a must-have for any agricultural library. Eliot Coleman’s books and innovative methods have helped innumerable organic farmers build successful farms in deep accordance with nature. The wisdom in this seminal book holds true even as the modern agricultural canon has grownin large part due to Coleman’s influence as a wise elder with decades of experience.
New information has been included in this edition to showcase the new tools and techniques that Eliot has been developing over the last thirty-five years. Inspired by the European intensive growers, The New Organic Grower, 30th Anniversary Edition, offers a very approachable and productive form of farming that has proven to work well for the earth and its stewards for centuries.
16. You Can Farm: The Entrepreneur's Guide to Start & Succeed in a Farming Enterprise
Author: by Joel Salatin
Polyface
English
480 pages
Have you ever desired, deep within your soul, to make a comfortable full-time living from a farming enterprise? Too often people dare not even vocalize this desire because it seems absurd. It’s like thinking the unthinkable. After all, the farm population is dwindling.
It takes too much capital to start.The pay is too low. The working conditions are dusty, smelly and noisy: not the place to raise a family. This is all true, and more, for most farmers. But for farm entrepreneurs, the opportunities for a farm family business have never been greater.
The aging farm population is creating cavernous niches begging to be filled by creative visionaries who will go in dynamic new directions. As the industrial agriculture complex crumbles and our culture clambers for clean food, the countryside beckons anew with profitable farming opportunities.
While this book can be helpful to all farmers, it targets the wannabes, the folks who actually entertain notions of living, loving and learning on a piece of land. Anyone willing to dance with such a dream should be able to assess its assets and liabilities; its fantasies and realities.
