Showing titles in Agricultural & Food Sciences

An extraordinary story of a girl, her grandfather and one of nature’s most mysterious and beguiling creatures: the honeybee. Meredith May recalls the first time a honeybee crawled on her arm. She was five years old, her parents had recently split and suddenly she found herself in the care of...

'A moving, vulnerable, honest, compassionate portrait of love, nature, writing and a life well-lived' Rory Stewart A lyrical memoir of life and love on a Devon farm - Michael Morpurgo's most personal and moving book to date Fifty years ago, Michael and Clare Morpurgo packed their young family...

Almost every plant in a garden forms a relationship with fungi, and many plants would not exist without their fungal partners. By better understanding this relationship, home gardeners can take advantage of the benefits of fungi, which include an increased uptake in nutrients, resistance to drought, earlier fruiting, and more. This must-have guide will teach you how fungi interact with plants and how to best to employ them in your home garden.

Framed by the author’s personal experience with backyard hens, Chickens: Their Natural and Unnatural Histories explores the history of the chicken from its descent from the dinosaurs to the space-age present. En route, Lembke surveys chickens in ancient Greece, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the 19th century, and modern times, including the role of chickens in Jewish and Muslim practices. She also investigates the birds’ contributions to science and their jaunty appearances in literature.

Have you ever dreamed of becoming more self-reliant, growing your own food, and learning the skills to thrive in any environment? Whether you live on a rural homestead or in the middle of the city, The Ultimate Self-Sufficiency Guide offers you the knowledge and practical tools to live a more independent, fulfilling life. This 2-in-1 collection combines homesteading mastery and beekeeping essentials for beginners, helping you gain the confidence to start building your sustainable future from scratch.

This book is a call to action. It warns that unless we learn to accept and respect our social, cultural and political differences as town and country people, we are never going to solve the chronic problems in our food system and environment.  As we stare down the barrel of climate change, only farmers - who manage two thirds of the UK's landscape - working together with conservation groups can create a healthier food system and bring back nature in diverse abundance. 

Have you been dreaming of a way of living that brings you closer to nature, aligning with your passion for sustainability and wholesome food? Are you overwhelmed by the complexities of starting a small-scale farming business that exists in harmony with Mother Nature? Does the idea of creating an eco-friendly, self-sufficient business resonate with your vision of a fulfilling, purposeful life?

Let's make honey, not excuses: Open the door to a world of Beekeeping in just a few weeks, even if you are an absolute beginner! Are you consistently fascinated by the idea of maintaining your own beehive but have no clue where to begin? Are you deeply concerned about the rapid decline of bee populations worldwide and wonder how you can make a positive impact? If so, you've come to the right place. In this guide, you'll find everything you need to kickstart your beekeeping journey. Even if you've never held a frame of bees in your life, it's easier than you think.

Is it too late to regenerate the earth? Call of the Reed Warbler shows the way forward for the future of our food supply, our Australian landscape and our planet. This ground-breaking audiobook will change the way we think of, farm and grow food. Author and radical farmer Charles Massy explores transformative and regenerative agriculture and the vital connection between our soil and our health.

Have you tried to learn about raising sheep before, but nothing seems to offer enough information for you to complete this task successfully? Do you finally want to say goodbye to your thoughts about failure and discover something that works for you? If so, then you've come to the right place. Raising sheep need not be difficult, even if you have tried it in the past without success. The number of small-scale sheep farmers in the US is on the rise.

For decades, it has been nearly universal dogma among environmentalists and health advocates that cattle and beef are public enemy number one. But is the matter really so clear? Hardly, argues environmental lawyer turned rancher Nicolette Hahn Niman in her new book, Defending Beef. The public has long been led to believe that livestock, especially cattle, erode soils, pollute air and water, damage riparian areas, and decimate wildlife populations. In Defending Beef, Hahn Niman argues that cattle are not inherently bad for either the Earth or our own nutritional health.

Picking up where she left off in Where the Blind Horse Sings, Kathy Stevens regales us with more tales of the rescued animals at Catskill Animal Sanctuary (CAS), some touching, some hilarious, all provocative. We meet Barbie, the broiler hen found hiding under a blue Honda in Brooklyn who falls for the animal ambassador Rambo, a ram with an uncanny sense of what others need. Then there’s Norma Rae, the turkey rescued from a "turkey bowl" just before Thanksgiving.

Renowned business author David Magee fuses both the interesting history and philosophy of one of America's most well-known companies in this entertaining aid for business management. While other American businesses are crumbling under low-cost foreign competition, John Deere Company thrives by maintaining such ideas as building the best product, being open to change and innovation, listening rather than leading, and keeping virtuous business practices.

Bombastic headlines about science and technology are nothing new. To cut through the constant stream of information and misinformation on social media, or grab the attention of investors, or convince governments to take notice, strident headlines or bold claims seem necessary to give complex, nuanced information some wow factor. But hype has a dark side, too. It can mislead. It can distract. It can blinker us from seeing what is actually going on.

More than anything else, this is a book about love. In this deeply moving account, you will hear about Rambo, a sheep who informs the staff when another animal is in trouble; and Paulie, a former cockfighting rooster who eats lunch with humans; Dino, an old toothless pony who survived a fire; and many more. Alongside these horses, roosters, pigs, sheep, rabbits, cows, and other animals is a staff of loving humans for whom every animal life, even that of a frog rushed to the vet for emergency surgery, has merit.

Being among bees is a full-body experience, Mark Winston writes. Bee Time presents his reflections on three decades spent studying these remarkable creatures, and on the lessons they can teach about how humans might better interact with one another and the natural world, from the boardroom to urban design to agricultural ecosystems.

For most people, giving up the day job and moving to a beautiful area of France and living off the vines is an impossible but delicious dream. In 1990, Patricia Atkinson and her husband decided to sell up in Britain and emigrate to the Dordogne. Their idea was to buy a house with a few vines attached and employ someone to tend to the wine while they earned their living with some financial consultancy work.

The food industry is a major driver of climate change, pollution, obesity, animal suffering, and workplace exploitation. Many food writers blame the industrial food system and tell individual eaters to fix these problems by buying local, artisanal food from small farmers—a solution most Americans can't afford.

Beekeeping is an old practice that even the ancient Egyptians liked to do. In essence, beekeeping really means nurturing and supporting adult bee populations that produce honey and other bee products such as beeswax or royal jelly. Beekeeping can be extremely rewarding as a hobby, and there’s nothing quite so delicious as homegrown honey. But you should also keep in mind that beekeeping is no walk in the park - you need all the help you can get.

From an award-winning journalist and beer expert, a thoughtful and witty guide to understanding and enjoying beer Right here, right now is the best time in the history of mankind to be a beer drinker. America now has more breweries than at any time since prohibition, and globally, beer culture...