Intensive Agriculture And Sustainability

As globalization restructures agriculture and rural communities, the impacts of industrialized farming have captured public attention. Concerns are mounting about food quality, manure runoff, greenhouse gases, extra-label use of antibiotics, pesticide use, and rural conflict. This collection outline [...]
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As globalization restructures agriculture and rural communities, the impacts of industrialized farming have captured public attention. Concerns are mounting about food quality, manure runoff, greenhouse gases, extra-label use of antibiotics, pesticide use, and rural conflict. This collection outlines the advantages of farming systems analysis for understanding intensive agriculture and for evaluating its sustainability. Contributors look at the major environmental and social problems connected with intensive farming. They outline trade-offs between profitability and environmental sustainability, and provide case studies that analyze farming systems. The book concludes that rural conflict and government regulation are likely to continue unless the public joins with farmers to help fund stewardship practices and stabilize farm incomes. The magnitude and complexity of the problems posed by intensive agriculture make interdisciplinary analyses of the linkages among the social, environmental, and economic aspects of farming ever more vital.This book will appeal to field practitioners, agricultural and environmental policy analysts, geographers, and those scholars and students weary of the pervasive production-oriented disciplinary focus that typifies most agricultural research.