Serious poultry farmers and backyard bird raisers have relied on this best-selling reference for more than 20 years. The fourth edition of Gail Damerow’s comprehensive handbook is now completely revised and redesigned, making it more accessible and informative than ever. You’ll get the most up-to-date details on shelter, food, health care, eggs, chicks, and meat, and recent research into chicken behavior and communication makes the sections on flock management truly authoritative. New color photos and illustrations provide more specificity and information about chicken breeds, anatomy, and health. Read more

The New York Times bestselling author of Deep Nutrition explains how eight common seed oils cause the cellular damage that underlies virtually all chronic disease, exposes the corruption that deceives doctors and consumers alike, and gives us a clear roadmap to recovery and rejuvenation.Did you know that consuming a large serving of french fries—cooked in vegetable oil—delivers the toxicity of smoking 24 cigarettes? Cornell-trained biochemist turned family physician Dr. Cate Shanahan introduces us to well-respected scientists who warn that vegetable oils are a public health disaster, wreaking havoc on our bodies’ cells by depleting antioxidants and promoting free radical toxicity. Their many effects include: Uncontrollable hunger, so we need drugs to maintain our weight Inflammatory fat buildup under our skin and within our internal organs and arteries Blood sugar swings that promote bad moods and antisocial behavior Disrupted brain energy, concentration problems, and mental illnesses Intracellular oxidative stress that promotes cancer development Gut inflammation, bloating, heartburn, and the runs Americans were enticed into buying these oils based on their cholesterol-lowering property, but the idea that cholesterol-lowering is beneficial was pushed on us without solid evidence to support it. In Dark Calories, Dr. Cate reveals the financial entanglements between industry and underhanded academics who created and sustain our 1950s-era, arbitrary dietary rules. As a solution, she proposes a clear, no-nonsense plan that aligns with our genetic needs and nature’s laws. Thankfully, recovering our health is simplified by the fact that nutrients that treat one condition also tend to treat all the rest. As an added bonus, we also revive our sense of taste so that our cravings shift to wholesome, nourishing foods instead. Read more

Storey’s Guide to Raising Sheep is the best-selling, most trusted reference for farmers and backyard homesteaders with any size flock. The fifth edition is now updated with full-color illustrations and photographs throughout, including a gallery of the best breed choices for both meat and fiber. With their small size and gentle dispositions, sheep are one of the easier livestock species to raise and offer varied marketing opportunities, including meat, wool, and milk. Detailed instructions and graphics lead readers through every essential procedure, including shearing, building a lambing shed, breeding and lambing, butchering, and marketing. Read more

In The Dorito Effect, Mark Schatzker shows us how our approach to the nation's number-one public health crisis has gotten it wrong. The epidemics of obesity, heart disease, and diabetes are not tied to the overabundance of fat or carbs. Instead we have been led astray by the growing divide between flavor - the tastes we crave - and the underlying nutrition. Since the late 1940s, we have been slowly leeching flavor out of the food we grow. Simultaneously we have taken great leaps forward in technology, allowing us to produce in the lab the very flavors that are being lost on the farm. Thanks to this largely invisible epidemic, seemingly healthy food is becoming more like junk food: highly craveable but nutritionally empty. We have unknowingly interfered with an ancient chemical language - flavor - that evolved to guide our nutrition, not destroy it. Read more

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A couple working six months per year for 50 hours per week on 20 acres can net $25,000-$30,000 per year with an investment equivalent to the price of one new medium-sized tractor. Seldom has agriculture held out such a plum. In a day when main-line farm experts predict the continued demise of the family farm, the pastured poultry opportunity shines like a beacon in the night, guiding the way to a brighter future. Read more

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With in-depth information on feeding, housing, behavior, and health care, this comprehensive guide also provides proven strategies for creating a profitable business plan and marketing your products. Whether you’re about to acquire your first ducks or are interested in experimenting with rare breeds, Storey’s Guide to Raising Ducks will help you achieve your duck-raising goals.  Read more

From taking cuttings to winning new customers, this is the guide to growing beautiful organic flowers for enjoyment or profitOver 75,000 copies sold!The first edition of The Flower Farmer: An Organic Grower’s Guide to Raising and Selling Cut Flowers helped thousands of small growers start successful cut-flower businesses. This expanded and thoroughly revised second edition has become equally influential for backyard novices and experienced growers alike.New sections in this edition include:Utilizing greenhousesRecommendations for flower cultivarsPost-harvest handlingAlso updated is the acclaimed resource directory, complete with sources of seeds, plants and supplies, and expert information on organic production under the National Organic Program.For the beginner and backyard gardener, there is an extensive section on the basics, including:Variety selectionSoil preparationPlanting, cultivation & harvestFloral designFor the commercial grower, The Flower Farmer, 2nd Edition includes information about:Larger-scale productionAdvice about selling to florists, wholesalers, and supermarketsUnderstanding the wedding and farmers market customersThis updated edition also includes revised profiles of successful growers, offering behind-the-scenes insight into the operation of some of the most cutting-edge flower farmers in the country. Because of the extensive revisions and enhanced content, The Flower Farmer, 2nd Edition is essential reading for those already in the flower business, as well as those who dream of growing flowers for enjoyment or profit. Read more

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Named a "Best Book for Budding Farmers" by Country Living“Flower Farming for Profit does a deep dive into the least glamorous, but most important part of farming―how to run a profitable business. This must-have book is incredibly thoughtful, well organized, and brimming with real-life examples. Lennie’s down-to-earth, no-nonsense approach to the numbers is a breath of fresh air.”―Erin Benzakein, owner, Floret Farm; New York Times bestselling author of Floret Farm’s A Year in FlowersWith practical, step-by-step instructions and on-the-ground examples at every scale, Flower Farming for Profit is a comprehensive, beautiful guide to achieving profitability as a cut flower farmer.When Lennie Larkin set out to become a flower farmer, she found all sorts of resources about growing flowers but a scarcity of reliable information on how to build a profitable cut flower business. How do you create efficient systems and adequately value your own time and effort through your pricing? When and how should you consider scaling up your farm? How can you make doing what you love support you financially?In Flower Farming for Profit, Larkin answers these questions―and many, many more. With instructive lessons and savvy business tips from her own and other successful farms around the world, she explores:The diverse challenges of both wholesale and retail sales channels, from florists and farm stands to farmers marketsStreamlining weddings for the farmer-florist, from communications to floral designEfficient recordkeeping and bookkeepingSteps for conducting your own cost-of-production analysisMarketing and growth strategiesBusiness planning, goal setting, and making financial projectionsCrop planning based on local climatic conditions, market demand, and sales projections The cut flower industry continues to experience wild growth. To successfully do what they love while expanding the market for sustainably produced flowers, new and experienced farmers alike must deliberately step back from the field and into the office. Flower Farming for Profit is a one-of-a-kind guide to creating the type of numbers-driven business that will allow individual farms to prosper and local flower economies to thrive. Read more

Barons is the story of seven corporate titans, their rise to power, and the consequences for everyone else. Take Mike McCloskey, chairman of Fair Oaks Farms. In a few short decades, he went from managing a modest dairy herd to running the Disneyland of agriculture. Mike benefited from deregulation of the American food industry, a phenomenon that has consolidated wealth in the hands of select tycoons, and along the way, hollowed out the nation's rural towns and local businesses.Along with Mike McCloskey, listeners will meet a secretive German family that took over the global coffee industry in less than a decade, relying on wealth traced back to the Nazis to gobble up countless independent roasters. And they will learn that in the food business, crime really does pay-especially when you can bribe and then double-cross the president of Brazil.These, and the other stories in this book, are simply examples of the monopolies and ubiquitous corruption that today define American food. The tycoons profiled are hardly unique: many other companies have manipulated our lax laws and failed policies for their own benefit, to the detriment of our neighborhoods, livelihoods, and our democracy itself. A fair, healthy, and prosperous food industry is possible-if we take back power from the barons who have robbed us of it. Read more

This best-selling handbook is packed with detailed information on housing, feeding, and fencing dairy goats. It’s been the trusted resource on the topic for farmers and homesteaders since it was originally published in 1975, and the new edition — completely updated and redesigned — makes Storey’s Guide to Raising Dairy Goats more comprehensive and accessible than ever. In-depth sections explain every aspect of milking, including necessary equipment, proper hand-milking techniques, and handling and storing the milk. New color illustrations show each stage of kidding, and substantial chapters on dairy goat health and breeding include the most up-to-date research and practices. Read more

"A deeply curious and evenhanded report on our national appetites." --The New York TimesIn the tradition of Fast Food Nation and The Omnivore's Dilemma, an extraordinary investigation into the human lives at the heart of the American grocery storeThe miracle of the supermarket has never been more apparent. Like the doctors and nurses who care for the sick, suddenly the men and women who stock our shelves and operate our warehouses are understood as 'essential' workers, providing a quality of life we all too easily take for granted. But the sad truth is that the grocery industry has been failing these workers for decades. In this page-turning expose, author Benjamin Lorr pulls back the curtain on the highly secretive grocery industry. Combining deep sourcing, immersive reporting, and sharp, often laugh-out-loud prose, Lorr leads a wild investigation, asking what does it take to run a supermarket? How does our food get on the shelves? And who suffers for our increasing demands for convenience and efficiency? In this journey:We learn the secrets of Trader Joe's success from Trader Joe himselfDrive with truckers caught in a job they call "sharecropping on wheels"Break into industrial farms with activists to learn what it takes for a product to earn certification labels like "fair trade" and "free range"Follow entrepreneurs as they fight for shelf space, learning essential tips, tricks, and traps for any new food businessJourney with migrants to examine shocking forced labor practices through their eyesThe product of five years of research and hundreds of interviews across every level of the business, The Secret Life of Groceries is essential reading for those who want to understand our food system--delivering powerful social commentary on the inherently American quest for more and compassionate insight into the lives that provide it. Read more

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A lively argument from an award-winning journalist proving that the key to reversing America’s health crisis lies in the overlooked link between nutrition and flavor: “The Dorito Effect is one of the most important health and food books I have read” (Dr. David B. Agus, New York Times bestselling author).We are in the grip of a food crisis. Obesity has become a leading cause of preventable death, after only smoking. For nearly half a century we’ve been trying to pin the blame somewhere—fat, carbs, sugar, wheat, high-fructose corn syrup. But that search has been in vain, because the food problem that’s killing us is not a nutrient problem. It’s a behavioral problem, and it’s caused by the changing flavor of the food we eat. Ever since the 1940s, with the rise of industrialized food production, we have been gradually leeching the taste out of what we grow. Simultaneously, we have taken great leaps forward in technology, creating a flavor industry, worth billions annually, in an attempt to put back the tastes we’ve engineered out of our food. The result is a national cuisine that increasingly resembles the paragon of flavor manipulation: Doritos. As food—all food—becomes increasingly bland, we dress it up with calories and flavor chemicals to make it delicious again. We have rewired our palates and our brains, and the results are making us sick and killing us. With in-depth historical and scientific research, The Dorito Effect casts the food crisis in a fascinating new light, weaving an enthralling tale of how we got to this point and where we are headed. We’ve been telling ourselves that our addiction to flavor is the problem, but it is actually the solution. We are on the cusp of a new revolution in agriculture that will allow us to eat healthier and live longer by enjoying flavor the way nature intended. Read more

A practical, systems-based approach for a more sustainable farming operation"Ben Hartman has revolutionized his methods, cut down his work hours dramatically, and shrunk the size of his farm, all while making a better income."―Civil EatsTo many people today, using the words “factory” and “farm” in the same sentence is nothing short of sacrilege. In many cases, though, the same sound business practices apply whether you are producing cars or carrots. Author Ben Hartman and other young farmers are increasingly finding that incorporating the best new ideas from business into their farming can drastically cut their wastes and increase their profits, making their farms more environmentally and economically sustainable. By explaining the lean system for identifying and eliminating waste and introducing efficiency in every aspect of the farm operation, The Lean Farm makes the case that small-scale farming can be an attractive career option for young people who are interested in growing food for their community.Working smarter, not harder, also prevents the kind of burnout that start-up farmers often encounter in the face of long, hard, backbreaking labor. Lean principles grew out of the Japanese automotive industry, but they are now being followed on progressive farms around the world. Using examples from his own family’s one-acre community-supported farm in Indiana, Hartman clearly instructs other small farmers in how to incorporate lean practices in each step of their production chain, from starting a farm and harvesting crops to training employees and selling goods.Inside The Lean Farm you'll discover how to apply lean practices like:Every Tool In Its PlaceTen Types of Farm WasteEstablish Pull, Don't PushLimits of LeanLean for More Profitand much more! While the intended audience for this book is small-scale farmers who are part of the growing local food movement, Hartman’s prescriptions for high-value, low-cost production apply to farms and businesses of almost any size or scale that hope to harness the power of lean in their production processes.Ben Hartman was named a "Grist 50! Fixer""The Lean Farm should be dissected, digested, and discussed―then applied―on every single farm: big or small, wholesale or retail, livestock or produce. It would make all farms more profitable, productive, and pleasurable.”―Joel Salatin, owner of Polyface Farm Read more

Discover how humanely handling your livestock can improve the day-to-day operation and profitability of your farm. Stressing the importance of understanding livestock behavior, Temple Grandin shows you how to develop a respectful working relationship with your animals to promote their health and productivity. With detailed construction plans for animal-friendly facilities of all sizes and dozens of low-stress methods for moving your livestock on pastures, padlocks, and feedlot pens, this guide has everything you need to know to create a comfortable atmosphere for thriving, happy livestock.    Read more

Rachel Carson Environment Book Award, First Place (2018) IPPY Outstanding Book of the Year: Most Likely to Save the Planet (2018) Thorpe Menn Literary Excellence Award (2018) "Reads like a mystery novel as Gillam skillfully uncovers Monsanto's secretive strategies." —Erin Brockovich "A damning picture...Gillam expertly covers a contentious front." —Publishers Weekly"A must-read." —Booklist"Hard-hitting, eye-opening narrative." —Kirkus It's the pesticide on our dinner plates, a chemical so pervasive it’s in the air we breathe, our water, our soil, and even found increasingly in our own bodies. Known as Monsanto's Roundup by consumers, and as glyphosate by scientists, the world's most popular weed killer is used everywhere from backyard gardens to golf courses to millions of acres of farmland. For decades it's been touted as safe enough to drink, but a growing body of evidence indicates just the opposite, with research tying the chemical to cancers and a host of other health threats.      In Whitewash, veteran journalist Carey Gillam uncovers one of the most controversial stories in the history of food and agriculture, exposing new evidence of corporate influence. Gillam introduces readers to farm families devastated by cancers which they believe are caused by the chemical, and to scientists whose reputations have been smeared for publishing research that contradicted business interests. Readers learn about the arm twisting of regulators who signed off on the chemical, echoing company assurances of safety even as they permitted higher residues of the pesticide in food and skipped compliance tests. And, in startling detail, Gillam reveals secret industry communications that pull back the curtain on corporate efforts to manipulate public perception.   Whitewash is more than an exposé about the hazards of one chemical or even the influence of one company. It's a story of power, politics, and the deadly consequences of putting corporate interests ahead of public safety. Read more

In 1979, Dan Morgan, a journalist with the Washington Post, wrote Merchants of Grain, a definitive history of the international grain trade. In the 40 years since Dan’s book was published the grain markets have changed almost beyond recognition. So too have the merchants of grain. Once shadowy figures, grain merchants have now come out of the shadows. Almost everything that you eat or drink today will contain something bought, stored, transported, processed, shipped, distributed or sold by one of the seven giants of the agricultural supply chain. The media often refers to them as the ABCD group of international grain-trading companies, with ABCD standing for ADM, Bunge, Cargill and Dreyfus. The acronym, though, ignores the other three giants of the food supply: Glencore, COFCO International and Wilmar. Together, they handle 50 percent of the international trade in grain and oilseeds. In this book’s series of exclusive and unprecedented interviews, CEOs and senior traders from these seven giants describe in their own words how the agricultural markets are changing, and how they are adapting to those changes. Accompanying text explains how grain trading works, what grain traders do, and the journey that your food takes before arriving on your plate.This is the inside story of the grain market and of the seven companies at the centre of the world’s food supply. Read more