What do you think?
Rate this book
From the Good Earth: A Celebration of Growing Food Around the World
Color photographs explore the diversity of organically grown food by taking the reader to faraway places such as Central Africa, the Peruvian Andes, Sicily, Chinese villages, rural Europe, and the American Southwest.
168 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1993
78 people want to read
About the author
Michael Ableman
10 books9 followersMichael Ableman is an American-Canadian author, organic farmer, educator, and advocate for sustainable agriculture. Michael has been farming organically since the early 1970s and is considered one of the pioneers of the organic farming and urban agriculture movements. He is a frequent lecturer to audiences all over the world and the winner of numerous awards for his work. Ableman is the author of four trade published books: From the Good Earth: A celebration of growing food around the world; On Good Land: The autobiography of an urban farm; Fields Of Plenty; A farmer's journey in search of real food and the people who grow it, and most recently Street Farm; Growing Food, Jobs, and Hope on the Urban Frontier. Michael Ableman is the founder of the Center for Urban Agriculture at Fairview Gardens in Goleta, California where he farmed for 20 years; co-founder and director of Sole Food Street Farms and the charity Cultivate Canada in Vancouver, British Columbia; and founder and director of the Center for Arts, Ecology and Agriculture based at his family home and farm on Salt Spring Island.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
June 24, 2024
I thoroughly enjoyed this book, although it is seriously misadvertised!
According to the blurb on the cover, it "investigates traditions that are thousands of years old" and is "filled with information and thought-provoking approaches to cultivation...A treasury of ideas and inspiration..." As a keen gardener and veg grower, I was keen to learn how to improve my growing with all these ideas and approaches to cultivation. Unfortunately, the book was very short on information, and the only really practical information is stuff that will already be very familiar to anyone with even a basic interest in the topic: eat local and seasonal, eat less meat, recycle food waste into compost, conserve water etc, etc, etc.
Ableman was obviously wearing rose-tinted spectacles when he wrote this book too! He rhapsodises about the wonderful lifestyle of subsistence farmers, but doesn't look beyond the obvious. After spending one single day with Peruvian farmers, he comments "by evening I felt like I'd been at an all-day party, not plowing a ten-acre field by hand". I'm sure spending one day doing this was fun - especially as he admits he couldn't keep up with the pace of the other workers - but he didn't have to go back the next day...and the next...and the next... Asked about nuclear weapons, a Chinese farmer replies: "Nuclear weapons are none of our business. They cannot kill the pests. All we can think about is to grow better crops and the next bowl of rice." Ableman compares this favourably with the "complexities" of his life at home, but would he really want to live from one bowl of rice to the next? He is starry-eyed about the homesteads in Burundi and the way even tiny children help with the farming - but never mentions that the average life expectancy in Burundi is a good 14 years lower than that of America, the infant mortality rate is much higher and that healthcare is extremely limited.
As a book on farming methods around the world, it's pretty useless - but as a book of photographs celebrating food and farming, it is outstanding. I've rated it 4 stars based on the pictures - rating it on the text, I would have given 2 stars.
This would make a fantastic coffee table book, especially for anyone interested in farming, farm shops and markets around the world. Just don't bother reading the text!
According to the blurb on the cover, it "investigates traditions that are thousands of years old" and is "filled with information and thought-provoking approaches to cultivation...A treasury of ideas and inspiration..." As a keen gardener and veg grower, I was keen to learn how to improve my growing with all these ideas and approaches to cultivation. Unfortunately, the book was very short on information, and the only really practical information is stuff that will already be very familiar to anyone with even a basic interest in the topic: eat local and seasonal, eat less meat, recycle food waste into compost, conserve water etc, etc, etc.
Ableman was obviously wearing rose-tinted spectacles when he wrote this book too! He rhapsodises about the wonderful lifestyle of subsistence farmers, but doesn't look beyond the obvious. After spending one single day with Peruvian farmers, he comments "by evening I felt like I'd been at an all-day party, not plowing a ten-acre field by hand". I'm sure spending one day doing this was fun - especially as he admits he couldn't keep up with the pace of the other workers - but he didn't have to go back the next day...and the next...and the next... Asked about nuclear weapons, a Chinese farmer replies: "Nuclear weapons are none of our business. They cannot kill the pests. All we can think about is to grow better crops and the next bowl of rice." Ableman compares this favourably with the "complexities" of his life at home, but would he really want to live from one bowl of rice to the next? He is starry-eyed about the homesteads in Burundi and the way even tiny children help with the farming - but never mentions that the average life expectancy in Burundi is a good 14 years lower than that of America, the infant mortality rate is much higher and that healthcare is extremely limited.
As a book on farming methods around the world, it's pretty useless - but as a book of photographs celebrating food and farming, it is outstanding. I've rated it 4 stars based on the pictures - rating it on the text, I would have given 2 stars.
This would make a fantastic coffee table book, especially for anyone interested in farming, farm shops and markets around the world. Just don't bother reading the text!
February 5, 2011
The chorus of voices celebrating traditional and sustainable agriculture have become louder recently but few tell a story as simply as this one written in the early 1990s. Compare the emerald hills of Peru, the laughing potato farmers with kids in tow to the gas masks and dusty deserts of industrial farms. It's a pretty stark contrast. The text is broken akwardly in places by the photographs, but overall a lush pictoral account of farmers' real lives.
February 14, 2011
This has become one of my favorite coffee-table books, or one to open when I'm feeling reflective. There are three sections: conventional agriculture (horrifying), organic agriculture (inspiring), and marketplaces around the world (beautiful). I love the commonalities between farmers from around the globe! For those of us who love farming and the earth like our own skin, this is pretty much the ultimate ag-porn.
May 24, 2016
I was surprised to see that this book was published over 20 years ago. It’s a lovely book, full of photographs of traditional-practices farms and gardens from around the world, along with essays championing sustainable agriculture. I want to read more of his work.
January 5, 2008
An inspiration for anyone who knows that a potato is a plant and who thinks it's a good idea to teach forgotten things like that.
June 20, 2013
Beautiful pictures. Gear coffee table books. Excellent thems.
July 22, 2013
Beautiful!
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews