From the Ground Up: The Women Revolutionizing Regenerative Agriculture

by Stephanie Anderson

An award-winning author’s powerful exploration of the remarkable women driving transformative change in America’s food systemIt’s well known that our industrialized food system has abandoned priorities of nutrition and environmental stability in the pursuit of profit—a model designed to fail, especially as climate change escalates. Yet this groundbreaking book describes a glimmer of a green wave of diverse female farmers, entrepreneurs, community organizers, scientists, and political leaders who operate with the shared goals of combatting climate change through regenerative agriculture, redesigning the food system, and producing healthy, socially responsible food.

From the Ground Up, by journalist and award-winning author Stephanie Anderson, offers a journey into the root causes of our unsustainable food chain, revealing its detrimental reliance on extractive agriculture, which depletes soil and water, produces nutritionally deficient food, and devastates communities and farmers. Anderson then delivers an uplifting, deeply reported narrative of women-led farms and ranches nationwide, supported by women-led investment firms, farmer training programs, restaurants, supply chain partners, and advocacy groups, all working together to create a more inclusive and sustainable world.

From the Ground Up sheds light on a set of inspiring journeys, with stories that will transform the way we think about the food chain—one that can weather the storms of climate change, conflicts, and global pandemics.

Genres: Nonfiction

256 pages, Hardcover

Published November 19, 2024

About the author

Stephanie Anderson's debut nonfiction book, One Size Fits None: A Farm Girl's Search for the Promise of Regenerative Agriculture, was released in January 2019 with University of Nebraska Press. The book won a 2019 Midwest Book Award (Nature) and a 2020 Nautilus Book Award (Green Living and Sustainability; silver), and it was one of three finalists for the 2020 High Plains Book Award in Nonfiction. Stephanie is the winner of the 2020 Margolis Award for nonfiction writers of social justice journalism and a 2021 Nonfiction Award from the Barbara Deming Money for Women Fund. Her second book on regenerative agriculture, From the Ground Up: The Women Revolutionizing Regenerative Agriculture, is forthcoming with The New Press in November 2024.

Stephanie's essays and short stories have appeared in The Rumpus, TriQuarterly, Flyway, The Pinch, Hotel Amerika, Midwestern Gothic, The Chronicle Review, Sweet, and many others. Her essays were included on the notable lists in Pushcart Prize Best of the Small Presses (2022 and 2023), The Best American Essays 2020 and The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2020. Her essay "Disturbance" won the 2022 Ninth Letter/Illinois Regenerative Agriculture Initiative Regeneration Literary Contest.

She also contributed to the essay collection Permanent Vacation: Eighteen Writers on Work and Life in Our National Parks, Vol. 2 from Bona Fide Books. Her essay "Greyhound" won the 2016 Payton James Freeman Essay Prize from The Rumpus, Drake University, and the Freeman family. Her short story "The Wickedest Thing They Ever Saw" was a finalist for the 2014 Devil's Lake Annual Driftless Prize in Fiction.

Stephanie holds an MFA in creative nonfiction (2015) from Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, FL, and a bachelor’s degree in English (2009) from Augustana University in Sioux Falls, SD. She serves as Assistant Professor of Creative Nonfiction in FAU's English Department beginning fall 2024. She has also taught workshops in fiction, poetry, and memoir at FAU's Osher Lifelong Learning Institute. Stephanie is co-editor of University of Nebraska Press' Our Regenerative Future book series.

In the past, Stephanie has worked as a writer and photographer for the humanitarian aid organization Cross International, traveling to developing countries to gather personal stories from aid recipients. She also served as special sections editor for Tri-State Neighbor, an agricultural newspaper in South Dakota.

Stephanie works primarily in literary journalism, narrative nonfiction, and literary fiction. Having grown up on her family's ranch in South Dakota, she often focuses on rural life, agriculture, food, the environment, personal relationships, and animals in her writing. Stephanie resides in South Florida with her husband, Ryan, and Italian greyhound Augie.

Reviews

[Bethany Borgia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was inspirational even if it made me a bit sad about the state of US agriculture right now. It taught me a lot about agriculture history in the US which I didn’t realize I had been so uninformed about. I hope these four years pass quickly so we can maybe have another leader in the USDA who cares about rebuilding trust and incentivizing regenerative agricultural practices.

[Jessica · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was REALLY looking forward to reading this one but I had to quit. After reading the first couple of chapters I realized the author was hardly talking about the women-run farms that were supposed to be the focus of each chapter. It was more of a few pages about that farm and then the majority of the chapter about the evils of White men, industrial agriculture, colonization, how BIPOC people are discriminated against, etc. Not to say that what she was talking about wasn't true but I thought the point of the book was how these women are "revolutionizing regenerative agriculture." Not beating us over the head about how disadvantaged they still are in this field. This could have been an amazing book. Instead it was a lot of virtue signaling from a White woman. I would have much rather actually gotten more of the stories of these women and their regenerative farms.

[Sharon L · Rating 4 out of 5]

Engaging nonfiction that looks at the huge task of shifting our agricultural focus from growing as much commodity as possible to a sustainable option. Anderson tackles the presentation of the issue from two directions- those in the field making changes at the grassroots level and those working towards changes in policy. I wished there was more description of what regenerative agriculture would look like- yields, methods, economies, etc.- so I could better grasp the decision posed to farmers wishing to make the change. As a gardener I wished to learn more practical methods for implementing regenerative growing methods. Needless, the book offers "food for thought".

Thanks to NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Jessica Gigot · Rating 5 out of 5]

While her first book (One Size Fits None) focused on farmers, this book offers a deep dive into food systems and Stephanie does an excellent job describing and highlighting some of the women behind the scenes (ie distributors, investors, extension agents) that are essential for food and farming infrastructure. This is an interesting and informative read!

[Elisabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Digital ARC on Edelweiss+
Review to come

[Mikala · Rating 4 out of 5]

As an avid, life-long reader of The Old Farmers' Almanac, I have been aware of the groundswell of women and other minorities entering the regenerative agriculture space. This book does a good job of presenting the daily life, stresses and triumphs of a farmer and also the business aspects of running a farm. Having grown up on a family farm, I have always thought of small farms and money losing ventures and the only possible way to make them financially solvent is to have a lot of inheritance in land and machinery coupled with outside investors and government programs to barely survive. This book presents an alternative. Next up on my reading list is Wilding, a specific case study of regenerative ag.