Farming for the Long Haul: Resilience and the Lost Art of Agricultural Inventiveness

by Michael Foley, 265 pages, 5½x8½, softcover. “This is a book about farming today with an eye to an uncertain future.” So begins the author as he frames a journey that winds through ancient agricultural systems and understandings, up through farming in the ruins of the 20th century, to the new movement toward resilience. The emphasis is not on a critique of the current failures but rather a revitalized historical overview of what worked (and still does) for past cultures and farming societies throughout the world to inspire us as we reinvigorate our sustainability. An account by an actual farmer, it is hopeful and pragmatic, while having boots on the ground. Politics are not avoided: false economies are called out and energy consumption challenged. But through it all, the long-held wisdom of those who work the soil is upheld, sharing techniques and ways of thinking, so that modern farmers might incorporate that sagacity into their innovations. Wide-ranging and deeply insightful, this book unpaves old ground into which a new future can be seeded. -Nikos Kavanya