Editorial Review:

Farming and the Fate of Wild Nature addresses an urgent and complex issue facing communities and cultures throughout the world: the need for heightened land stewardship and conservation in an era of diminishing natural resources. Agricultural lands in rural areas are being purchased for development. Water scarcities are pitting urban and development expansion against agriculture and conservation needs. The farming population is ageing and retiring, while those who remain struggle against low commodity prices, international competition, rising production costs, and the threat of disappearing subsidies. We are living amidst a major extinction crisis--much of it driven by agriculture--as well as an increasing shift toward a global urban populace. The modern diet, driven by a grain-fed livestock industry, is no longer connected with the ecosystems that support it. In international circles, experts are arguing that further intensification of agriculture (through industrialization and genetic modification) will be necessary to both feed an exploding human population and to save what is left of wild biodiversity.
This book takes up where its predecessor, the award-winning Farming with the Wild, left off. Featuring a wide range of in-depth essays, articles, and other materials by such authors as Aldo Leopold, Wendell Berry, Michael Pollan, Fred Kirschenmann, and Daniel Imhoff, this book persuasively demonstrates that farm and ranch operations which coexist with wild nature are necessary to sustain biodiversity and beauty on the landscape. In fact, as this invaluable educational resource demonstrates, they are essential in the challenge of building sane, healthy, and hopeful human societies.

Customer Reviews:

Avg. Customer Rating: 5.0 / 5.0

Farming and the Fate of Wild Nature: Essays in Conservation-Based agriculture:

The editors of this collection set out to "provide the scientific, philosophical, economic, and cultural underpinnings for an emerging movement, conservation-based agriculture". With many well-recognized contributors (e.g. Berry, Leopold, Kingsolver, Bass, Pollan), the volume should appeal to readers of both conservation biology and sustainable farming. The book uses an accessible journalistic or essayist rather than a scientific referenced style, though several selections provide clear syntheses of... more info

Dana Jackson's review as it appeared in the Winter 2007 Land Stewardship Letter:

Many sustainable agriculture activists have long been concerned about the fate of family farming. Not as many, however, have been concerned about the fate of wild nature at the hands of farming. Furthermore, those who are passionate about protecting wild nature have often been at odds with farmers passionate about protecting their crops and livestock from the impositions of wild nature.
Wendell Berry, the patron saint of family farming, has been impatient with wild lands advocates, seeing them as... more info

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