According to Tim O’Brien, the author of Factory Farming and Human Health, large-scale farming is a danger to human health. He concludes that close quarters for animals, exposure to excrement, dirt, a lack of sunlight and poor ventilation that lead to negative health effects in both animals and humans. The environment created by factory farming…
This article describes how urban farmers who chose to slaughter their own meat are facing new regulations and even bans on home butchering. This is coming after many residents filed complaints that home slaughtering is inhumane and that there are no animal welfare standards in effect. Officials have acknowledged that a growth in urban farming…
This article attempts to answer the questions, “Is environmental concern widely diffused throughout society or is it more strongly expressed by particular sub-populations? How has concern changed over time?” This was accomplished by studying the attitudes about agriculture and the environment in relation to an individual’s geographic and social distance from agriculture. They began by…
“The varied purposes and benefits of community gardening make it an ideal interventional strategy for community-based practitioners because myriad goals may be addressed through this approach.” Community gardening emerged in the United States in the 1890s as, “a means to address urban congestion caused by immigration, economic instability and environmental degradation”. Immigrants, children and the…
“Watsonville is a largely Latino community, where many farm workers live – and several students […] have gone there with the intention of teaching Latino youth how to grow food, apparently with nary a trace of irony shown.” Julie Guthman, a professor at the University of California at Santa Cruz in the Department of Community…
The Cry of the Kalahari is a firsthand account of Mark and Delia Owens’ quest into the unknown wilderness of Botswana’s Deception Valley. They began their life-changing adventure in 1974 and studied the unique desert landscape where they remained until 1980 when they returned to civilization to put their findings to good use. While living…
Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal is a satirical, yet very serious first-hand account of how government regulations affect small-scale farmers. The author, Joel Salatin, full-time ecological farmer, part-time public speaker and educational leader, details various encounters he and those like him have had with the food police, politicians, industrial farmers, customers, regulating agencies,…