There is an increasing realization among biophysical scientists that human behavior drastically impacts the degree to which sound agroecosystems are implemented. Written by an international team of experts assembled by a leading rural sociologist, Interactions Between Agroecosystems and Rural Communities shows how human behavior impacts agroecosyst

This book examines the process of rural community development and transition—exploring the ways in which history, culture, and policies limit change as well as the extent to which local community resources can mobilize to support efforts for community change.

Crisis in rural America is by now an all too familiar complaint, yet the problems presented by changing demographics, economic decline, and increasing poverty persist. They have not vanished with a new administration. However, with a new farm bill in the offing, now is the time for a fresh initiative to assess the difficulties facing nonurban America and to offer positive solutions. Rural Policies for the 1990s, written by some of the foremost experts on rural America, focuses on ...

In this edition of their bestseller, the sequel to the best-selling Good News for a Change, authors David Suzuki and Holly Dressel provide the latest inspiring stories about individuals, groups, and businesses that are making real change in the world. More Good News features the most up-to-date information about critical subjects, such as energy and the economy, not covered in the previous edition. These stories offer compelling proof from the front lines that sustainable...

How government can implement more successful policies, more oftenFrom healthcare to workplace and campus conduct, the federal government is taking on ever more responsibility for managing our lives. At the same time, Americans have never been more disaffected with Washington, seeing it as an intrusive, incompetent, wasteful giant. Ineffective policies are caused by deep structural factors regardless of which party is in charge, bringing our government into ever-wors...

This report aims to provide a conceptual framework to address food security under conditions of water scarcity in agriculture. It has been prepared by a team of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in the framework of the project "Coping with water scarcity: the role of agriculture", and has been discussed at an Expert Consultation meeting organized in FAO, Rome in December 2009 on the same subject. It was subsequently edited and revised, taking account of disc...

Globalization and its relation to poverty reduction and development are not well understood. This book explores the ways in which globalization can overcome poverty or make it worse. The book defines the big historical trends, identifies the main globalization processes - trade, finance, aid, migration, and ideas - and examines how each can contribute to economic development. By considering what helps and what does not, the book presents policy recommendations to make globalization more ef...

How a small handful of giant transnational corporations has come to dominate the farm inputs sector, why it matters, and what can be done about it.Every year, hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of farm machinery, fertilizer, seeds, and pesticides are sold to farmers around the world. Although agricultural inputs are a huge sector of the global economy, the lion’s share of that market is controlled by a relatively small number of very large transnational corpora...

America is the one of the wealthiest nations on earth. So why do so many Americans struggle to make ends meet? Why is it so difficult for those who start at the bottom to reach the middle class? And why, if a rising economic tide lifts all boats, have middle-class incomes been growing so slowly? Social Democratic America explains how this has happened and how we can do better. Lane Kenworthy convincingly argues that we can improve economic security, expand opportunity, and ensure ...

The core argument of Jean Anyon’s classic Radical Possibilities is deceptively simple: if we do not direct our attention to the ways in which federal and metropolitan policies maintain the poverty that plagues communities in American cities, urban school reform as currently conceived is doomed to fail. With every chapter thoroughly revised and updated, this edition picks up where the 2005 publication left off, including a completely new chapter detailing how three decades of polit...

based largely on information provided in fourteen country reports submitted to FAO as part of the reporting process for the report on The State of the World's Biodiversity for Food and Agriculture.Biodiversity for food and agriculture is the diversity of plants, animals and micro-organisms at genetic, species and ecosystem levels, present in and around crop, livestock, forest and aquatic production systems. It is essential to the structure, functions and processes of these systems,...

An " engrossing collection of rigorously researched articles" from Elizabeth Warren, Jared Bernstein, William Julius Wilson, and more ( Publishers Weekly).Can the wealthiest nation in the world do anything to combat the steadily rising numbers of Americans living in poverty—or the tens of millions of Americans living in "near poverty"? In this book, some of the country's most prominent scholars, businesspeople, and community activists answ...