Agricultural Books - Page 4

A Tale of Two Valleys: Wine, Wealth and the Battle for the Good Life in Napa and Sonoma

Alan Deutschman

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 21 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

When acclaimed journalist Alan Deutschman came to the California wine country as the lucky house guest of very rich friends, he was surprised to discover a raging controversy. A civil war was being fought between the Napa Valley, which epitomized elitism, prestige and wealthy excess, and the neighboring Sonoma Valley, a rag-tag bohemian enclave so stubbornly backward that rambunctious chickens wandered freely through town. But the antics really began when new-money invaders began pushing out Sonoma’s poets and painters to make way for luxury resorts and trophy houses that seemed a parody of opulence. A Tale of Two Valleys captures these stranger-than-fiction locales with the wit of a Tom Wolfe novel and uncorks the hilarious absurdities of life among the wine world’s glitterati.
Deutschman found that on the weekends the wine country was like a bunch of gracious hosts smiling upon their guests, but during the week the families feuded with each other and their neighbors like the Hatfields and McCoys. Napa was a comically exclusive club where the super-rich fought desperately to get in. Sonoma’s colorful free spirits and iconoclasts were wary of their bohemia becoming the next playground for the rapacious elite. So, led by a former taxicab driver and wine-grape picker, a cheese merchant, and an artist who lived in a barn surrounded by wild peacocks, they formed a populist revolt to seize power and repel the rich invaders.
Deutschman’s cast of characters brims with eccentrics, egomaniacs, and a mysterious man in black who crashed the elegant Napa Valley Wine Auction before proceeding to pay a half-million dollars for a single bottle. What develops is nothing less than a battle for the good life, a clash between old and new, the struggle for the soul of one of America’s last bits of paradise. A dishy glimpse behind the scenes of a West Coast wonderland, A Tale of Two Valleys makes for intoxicating reading.

The Illustrated Olive Farm: A Newly Written, Illustrated Companion to Her Bestselling Trilogy

Carol Drinkwater

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Brought the trilogy together 5 out of 5 stars.
10 of 11 people found this review helpful.

I absolutely loved reading the Olive Farm, Olive Season and Olive Harvest and the Illustrated Olive Farm brought those books to life with all the beautiful pictures. As a Francophile, these books were very satisfying to my soul.

Illustrated Olive Farm-Tres Bien! 5 out of 5 stars.
8 of 8 people found this review helpful.

This is the perfect companion to the Olive Farm trilogy which i have read and enjoyed. It was brilliant to finally be able to see the faces of the people i read about and came to care for. Beautiful photography and lyrical description which will enable one to feel as though they are there in the south of France and especially at Appassionata

Editorial Review:

A sumptuously illustrated companion to the bestselling Olive Farm trilogy. Carol Drinkwater, whose three books—The Olive Farm, The Olive Season, and The Olive Harvest—sold more than a quarter of a million copies in the UK alone, has produced an entirely new volume documenting life on Appassionata, the farm she shares with her husband Michel. Many of the well-loved locations and a large cast of engaging characters make an appearance, and the local customs, hidden beaches, fairs, culinary pleasures, and off-the-beaten track charms of Provence all receive lovingly detailed attention. Carol’s passion and joy will enchant armchair travelers and fans of her earlier works.
 
 

World Development Report 2008: Agriculture and Development (World Development Report) (World Development Report)

World Bank

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Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The world's demand for food is expected to double within the next 50 years, while the natural resources that sustain agriculture will become increasingly scarce, degraded, and vulnerable to the effects of climate change. In many poor countries, agriculture accounts for at least 40 percent of GDP and 80 percent of employment. At the same time, about 70 percent of the world's poor live in rural areas and most depend on agriculture for their livelihoods. World Development Report 2008 seeks to assess where, when, and how agriculture can be an effective instrument for economic development, especially development that favors the poor. It examines several broad questions: How has agriculture changed in developing countries in the past 20 years? What are the important new challenges and opportunities for agriculture? Which new sources of agricultural growth can be captured cost effectively in particular in poor countries with large agricultural sectors as in Africa? How can agricultural growth be made more effective for poverty reduction? How can governments facilitate the transition of large populations out of agriculture, without simply transferring the burden of rural poverty to urban areas? How can the natural resource endowment for agriculture be protected? How can agriculture's negative environmental effects be contained? This year's report marks the 30th year the World Bank has been publishing the World Development Report.

Buying Country Land: Storey Country Wisdom Bulletin A-67

Peggy Tonseth

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Good Primer 4 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

I liked this because it was brief. More of a phamplet or booklet. 4 starts for good basics. It actually gives as much information about the basics as some long winded books that just take a lot more words to say the same thing.

Editorial Review:

Since 1973, Storey's Country Wisdom Bulletins have offered practical, hands-on instructions designed to help readers master dozens of country living skills quickly and easily. There are now more than 170 titles in this series, and their remarkable popularity reflects the common desire of country and city dwellers alike to cultivate personal independence in everyday life.

Noble Rot: A Bordeaux Wine Revolution

William Echikson

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 18 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

In the wine capital of the world, a battle royal of tradition against innovation in the quest for ratings and market share.

For wine lovers the world over, Bordeaux is the center of the universe. But in the past two decades, revolutionaries have stormed its traditional bastions, making their mark—and their fortunes—modernizing the production and marketing of wine.

Noble Rot introduces us to the figures who epitomize the changes sweeping Bordeaux: the noble family behind Château d'Yquem engaged in a soap-opera feud; a stonemason turned winemaker whose wine, made in a garage, sells for $100 a bottle; the Maryland-based critic Robert Parker, whose opinion routinely makes or breaks a wine; and the New World operations that have used branding to undercut Bordeaux's supremacy. It also delves into the mysteries of the legendary classification of 1855: how it became the bible of Bordeaux, and how it was at last successfully challenged.

William Echikson takes readers inside the center of the French wine business to examine the schism between defenders of the old order and architects of the new.

Silent Steppe

Mukhamet Shayakhmetov

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Great Book! 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I am currently reading this book, and so far it is a great book, and very enlightening on the Kazakh culture and way of life both prior to and during Soviet times.

Well worth the read!

Mark Conway

Editorial Review:

This is a first-hand account of the genocide of the Kazakh nomads in the 1920s and 30s. Nominally Muslim, the Kazakhs and their culture owed as much to shamanism and paganism as they did to Islam. Their ancient traditions and economy depended on the breeding and herding of stock across the vast steppes of central Asia, and their independent, nomadic way of life was anathema to the Soviets.

Seven-year-old Shayakhmetov and his mother and sisters were left to fend for themselves after his father was branded a "kulak" (well-off peasant and thus class enemy), stripped of his possessions, and sent to a prison camp where he died. In the following years the family traveled thousands of miles across Kazakhstan by foot, surviving on the charity of relatives. Told with dignity and detachment, this central Asian Wild Swans awakens the reader to the scale of suffering of millions of Kazakhs, and also astonishes and inspires as a most singular survivor's tale.

The Complete Equine Legal and Business Handbook: Legal Insights and Practical Tips for a Successful Horse Business

Milton C. Toby

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Editorial Review:

Can a boarding farm owner sell a boarder's horse to satisfy a delinquent bill? Are corporations or partnerships more suitable to certain kinds of equine businesses? Will the posting of signs that indicate potential hazards reduce a farm owner's liability in the event of an injury? Does the IRS view horse ownership as a hobby or business? These questions and more are answered in The Complete Equine Legal and Business Handbook. Attorney Milton C. Toby looks at contract and liability issues that horse owners and horse business owners face as well as depreciation and deduction considerations, proper record-keeping, employer-employee relations, and public and private purchase of horses. This guide is essential for anyone involved in the horse business.

Florida Cow Hunter: The Life and Times of Bone Mizell

Jim Bob Tinsley

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

last of the original cracker cowboys 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 4 people found this review helpful.

Very informative. I've been researching the Florida Cattle History and found information to support my theroy. This is my second copy.

Florida Cow Hunter 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 4 people found this review helpful.

I bought this for my husband and he loved it. He loves to relate to others some of Bone's antics making for interesting and lively conversation.

Before Tourist 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Using a bigger than life cow hunter, these tales of Florida before tourist and railroads ruined our only semi-tropical frontier, Bone Mizell is of raw grit and survival. I like an up to date map when I read a book of this type.

Seeds of Wealth: Four Plants That Made Men Rich

Henry Hobhouse

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Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Following the widely celebrated Seeds of Change (1985) comes Seeds of Wealth, a collection of four elegant essays focusing on the economic and cultural consequences of the exploitation of timber, tobacco, rubber, and the wine grape. These cash crops have bound together trade relations for the past three centuries and have had a profound if little noted effect on our world. As early as Shakespeare's time, timber quantities in England had become deficient, promoting the use of coal and leading to the industrial revolution. Conversely, the abundance of timber and excellent growing conditions for tobacco in the United States led to great wealth and power for the young nation. The cultivation of the rubber tree and its importance in modern society helped to create the nations of Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia. And good wine, Hobhouse observes, makes people wealthy as well as mellow and wise. These four plants enormously increased the wealth of those who dealt with them, created new industries, shaped destinies, and changed the course of history.

Food and the Mid-Level Farm: Renewing an Agriculture of the Middle (Food, Health, and the Environment)

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Editorial Review:

Agriculture in the United States today increasingly operates in two separate spheres: large, corporate-connected commodity production and distribution systems and small-scale farms that market directly to consumers. As a result, midsize family-operated farms find it increasingly difficult to find and reach markets for their products. They are too big to use the direct marketing techniques of small farms but too small to take advantage of corporate marketing and distribution systems. This crisis of the midsize farm results in a rural America with weakened municipal tax bases, job loss, and population flight. Food and the Mid-Level Farm discusses strategies for reviving an "agriculture of the middle" and creating a food system that works for midsize farms and ranches. Activists, practitioners, and scholars from a variety of disciplines, including sociology, political science, and economics, consider ways midsize farms can regain vitality by scaling up aspects of small farms' operations to connect with consumers, organizing together to develop markets for their products, developing food supply chains that preserve farmer identity and are based on fair business agreements, and promoting public policies (at international, federal, state, and community levels) that address agriculture-of-the-middle issues.

Food and the Mid-Level Farm makes it clear that the demise of midsize farms and ranches is not a foregone conclusion and that the renewal of an agriculture of the middle will benefit all participants in the food system—from growers to consumers.

Contributors:
Elizabeth Barham, Sandra S. Batie, Eileen Brady, Fred Buttel, Peter Carstensen, Ken Dahlberg, Mike Duffy, Thomas Gray, Shelly Grow, Amy Guptill, William Heffernan, Mary Hendrickson, Elizabeth Higgins, Fred Kirschenmann, David Lind, Thomas Lyson, Caitlin O'Brady, Rich Pirog, Daryll Ray, Harwood D. Schaffer, G. W. Stevenson, Rick Welsh.