The Call of the Land – offers solutions to food crisis

Author Steven McFadden Releases “An Agrarian Primer for the 21st Century”

Lincoln, NE – “Food and farms are involved in a blitzkrieg of changes,” writes veteran journalist Steven McFadden in The Call of the Land, published this month by NorLightsPress. The book joins a growing chorus voicing a new vision for food and agriculture. Picking up where Food Inc., the recent documentary on industrial agriculture, leaves off, the volume presents dozens of creative responses to the crisis.

Dubbed “An Agrarian Primer for the 21st Century,” the sourcebook documents a range of positive pathways to food security, economic stability, environmental health, and cultural renewal. To McFadden and others, the call of the land now is an SOS. The responses—from individuals, communities, cities, and institutions—are both imaginative and practical.

Among the positive solutions featured in the book:

· The Food Depot of Santa Fe, NM, encourages home gardeners to plant an extra row for the hungry and donate the produce to local food pantries.

· Canada’s City Farmer teaches people how to plant and harvest edible rooftops.

· A Pasadena, CA family’s urban homestead grows 6,000 pounds of produce on a mere fifth of an acre.

· Milwaukee’s Growing Power empowers inner-city youth to raise healthy foods and reduce their community’s risk of obesity and diabetes.

· American Farmland Trust protects over 1 million acres of farmland.

· Sharing Backyards in Vancouver, B.C., links property owners with landless gardeners.

· North American gardeners and farmers can extend the growing season with cold frames, hoop houses, and high tunnels.

· Farmers markets and CSAs can accept food stamps to increase access to fresh produce.

· Food-shed co-op distribution sites help small-scale farmers reach their markets while avoiding costly deliveries.

· Appalachia’s Growing Minds serves local foods in the schools, offers farm field trips and nutrition education, and hosts a school garden.

· Portland, OR’s Fruit Tree Project gathers untended fruit before it falls and donates the harvest to those who need it most.

Steven McFadden is co-author with Trauger Groh of Farms of Tomorrow (1991), America’s first book on Community Supported Agriculture (CSA). The volume helped inspire the movement to grow from two farms in the late 1980s to thousands, with hundreds of thousands of shareholders, in 2009. Whole Earth News named Farms of Tomorrow “the best book to access the CSA movement.” Farms of Tomorrow Revisited (1998) recounts the lessons learned.

Order The Call of the Land here.

The author’s blog is here.