Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Foreword
Introduction — On the Cusp of a Revolution

I. Farming: An Emerging Paradigm
1. A New Approach to Agriculture
2. The Paradox of Agriculture
3. Farm Subsidies

II. Sustainability
4. Toward a Sustainable Agriculture
5. Sustainable Meat — A Contradiction in Terms?
6. Diversity in Agriculture
7. Energy and the Future of Farming
8. The New Normal

III. The Local Economy
9. The Emergent Market
10. The Consumer in a Changing Food System
11. Slow Money
12. CSA
13. Scaling Up — How Local Farms Will Feed America

IV. Conclusion
14. The Emergent Agriculture

Endnotes
Index
About the Author

Promotional Information

Local, diverse and resilient – the new culture of food

About the Author

Gary Kleppel is a professor of Biology at the State University of New York at Albany where he focuses on sustainable agriculture, conservation-based grazing, and the ecology of human-dominated landscapes. He and his wife Pam are owners of Longfield Farm, where they produce grass-fed lamb, wool, free range chickens and eggs, and artisanal breads. As part of their educational mandate, the Kleppels demonstrate sustainable farming practices and the importance of including ethics in food production to more than 100 visitors annually.

Reviews

Tipping points in food and farming are obvious to anyone courageous enough to look. This highly readable treatise explains the healing future awaiting us. Let's learn, embrace, and move forward. This book describes the future perfectly. ---Joel Salatin, Polyface Farm Here's the inside story on the most hopeful development in American culture in recent years. As local food systems grow and intertwine, they form a subversive challenge to the too-big-to-fail agriculture we've somehow come to accept as normal. ---Bill McKibben, author, Deep Economy In The Emergent Agriculture, Gary Kleppel leverages his extensive experience as an ecologist, teacher and farmer for an honest, sound and accessible examination of the often hidden costs of our current industrial agro-food system and the rise of one based on ethics, ecology and community replacing it. ---Sean Clark, farm director and agricultural ecologist, Berea College, Kentucky Dr. Kleppel makes an eloquent and well-researched case for supporting agricultural production that is community-based, appropriately scaled to local resources, nutritionally rich, and ethical. The content evokes Wendell Berry and Michael Pollan, but with many fresh insights about the enriched food systems that are sprouting from the ground up across the globe. ---Marianne Sarrantonio, associate professor of sustainable agriculture, University of Maine