Customer Reviews

Civic Agriculture: Reconnecting Farm, Food, and Community (Civil Society: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives)

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The issues that are addressed by Thomas Lyson in this small volume are important and becoming more so. He describes in adequate detail the progression from subsistance farming of our great grand parents to the industrial farms of today. He goes on to discuss how feeding and clothing the world's growing population in that manner is becoming more and more problematic and shows how the development of community based agriculture provides a path out of that morass.

One need not be an agronomist or agricultural economist to appreciate Professor Lyson's statement of the problem and its possible solution. In fact, the non-technical reader could well perceive this book as a good starting point for participation in this most important discussion.

In 2005, Thomas Lyson published an article "Civic Agriculture and Community Problem Solving" in the journal "Culture & Agriculture" (vol 27 no2 pages 92-98). In this short article, he articulates all of the important points of his book with the same title. I really enjoyed the article and hoped to find more in the book, but it mostly just adds history and background detail about the food system in general that can be found in most books on the subject.