Sierra
November/December 2002

Books

Smart Agriculture

The Farm As Natural Habitat: Reconnecting Food Systems With Ecosystems, edited by Dana L. Jackson and Laura L. Jackson (Island Press, $25)

There is a place for both the wild and the willed in the agricultural landscape, say Dana Jackson, associate director of the Land Stewardship Project, and Laura Jackson, a biologist at the University of Northern Iowa. Massive, chemically managed, monocultural tracts-ecological sacrifice zones-do not have to be an inevitable part of food production.

Their collection of essays makes a grim and thorough case against industrialized agriculture, but unlike the many exposés that leave us overwhelmed, they show how it's possible and profitable to manage diversified, small farms that also nurture wildlife.

But the authors do not pretend that a pastoral nostalgia trip can remediate the agricultural "progress" that has wrought a landscape bereft of biodiversity. Fostering ecological richness on farms requires more than the absence of synthetic pesticides and gigantic manure lagoons. As the essays reveal, sustainable and profitable farming is a sophisticated and fluid enterprise, part science and part art, requiring sweat and ingenuity for such innovations as management-intensive rotational grazing and use of biocontrols.

The Farm also makes clear why the time is ripe for a major overhaul of U.S. ag policy, which rewards big producers and punishes stewardship-minded farmers, at great environmental and taxpayer expense. It also emphasizes the need for better understanding between farmers and conservationists, who share some common goals and foes, and exhorts consumers to consider the hidden costs of the cheap food they take for granted.

The unusual range of contributors-including a journalist, nonprofit workers, extension agents, and academics-makes some essays less accessible than others, but that is also the book's strength. There is something for everybody who cares about the growing revolution in food production: farmers, conservation biologists, agriculture policymakers, and environmentalists. And birdwatchers, hunters, anglers, and other wildlife enthusiasts. And everybody who eats.

-Susan Maas

© Copyright 2002 Sierra Club