From the Ground Up: Rethinking Industrial Agriculture

by Helena Norberg-Hodge, John Page

Modern industrial agriculture is in crisis. In our obsession with 'efficiency' and short-term profit, we are losing all real connection with the natural world. As a result, the dream of global abundance promised by the introduction of chemical fertilisers, pesticides and hybrid seeds is becoming a nightmare of health risks, degraded land and ailing communities. The way we produce our food is destructive and quite simply unsustainable.

From the Ground Up sets the decline of agriculture within the broader context of industrialisation as a whole, and explores some of the fundamental principles which underlie the 'growth-at-any-cost' thinking of modern society. At the same time, it documents the growing public distrust of conventional agricultural practices, and highlights some of the most promising alternatives leading to more sane, environmentally healthy ways of producing food.

This book is a valuable reference for those concerned with the future of agriculture - in the industrialised countries as well as in the South, where agricultural development continues to be modelled on the industrial ideal.

160 pages, Hardcover

First published July 15, 1993

About the author

Helena Norberg-Hodge is a pioneer of the worldwide localization movement, and recipient of the 'Alternative Nobel Prize', the Goi Peace Prize and the Arthur Morgan Award.

Reviews

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

A brief and readable summary of the food crisis of the late 1980s / early 1990s. It covers the familiar litany of problems caused by industrial agriculture, provides a succinct summary of an ecological approach, and gives a promising account of trends that were just starting then. As a historical artifact, it may be of interest to those who—like me—remember the early 1990s as a period of optimism and hope for a better future. It is not the fault of the authors that they failed to recognize some of the challenges and consequences we faced. Unfortunately, it is out of date and seems somewhat naive in the present context. Many of the resources in the Appendix are out of date. The internet has rendered this kind of format obsolete.

[Jackson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very thankful that our school is not just doing lip service, but planning for a better future for all. SUSTAINABLE agriculture. It's kind of big, but it is being "rethinked"