Fatal Harvest takes an unprecedented look at our current ecologically destructive agricultural system and offers a compelling vision for an organic and environmentally safer way of producing the food we eat. It gathers together more than forty essays by leading ecological thinkers including Wendell Berry, Wes Jackson, David Ehrenfeld, Helena Norberg-Hodge, Vandana Shiva, and Gary Nabhan. Providing a unique and invaluable antidote to the efforts by agribusiness to obscure and disconnect us from the truth about industrialized foods, it demostrates that industrial food production is indeed a ""fatal harvest""--fatal to consumers, fatal to our landscapes, fatal to genetic diversity, and fatal to our farm communities.
As it exposes the ecological and social impacts of industrial agriculture's fatal harvest, Fatal Harvest details a new ecological and humane vision for agriculture. It shows how millions of people are engaged in the new politics of food as they work to develop a better alternative to the current chemically fed and biotechnology-driven system. Designed to aid the movement to reform industrial agriculture, Fatal Harvest informs and influences the activists, farmers, policymakers, and consumers who are seeking a safer and more sustainable food future.
Prologue \ Douglas Tompkins Acknowledgements Introduction \ Andrew Kimbrell
PART I. Corporate Lies: Busting the Myths of Industrial Agriculture Chapter 1. Seven Deadly Myths of Industrial Agriculture -Myth One: Industrial Agriculture Will Feed the World -Myth Two: Industrial Food Is Safe, Healthy, and Nutritious -Myth Three: Industrial Food Is Cheap -Myth Four: Industrial Agriculture Is Efficient -Myth Five: Industrial Food Offers More Choices -Myth Six: Industrial Agriculture Benefits the Environment and Wildlife -Myth Seven: Biotechnology Will Solve the Problems of Industrial Agriculture
PART II. The Agrarian and Industrial Worldviews Chapter 2. Understanding the Agrarian Ethic -The Whole Horse: The Preservation of the Agrarian Mind \ Wendell Berry -Agricultural Landscapes in Harmony with Nature \ Joan Iverson Nassauer -Global Monoculture: The Worldwide Destruction of Diversity \ Helena Norberg-Rodge -Farming in Nature's Image: Natural Systems Agriculture \ Wes Jackson
Chapter 3. Understanding Industrial Agriculture -Hard Times for Diversity \ David Ehrenfeld - Machine Logic: Industrializing Nature and Agriculture \ Jerry Mander -Industrial Agriculture's War against Nature \ Ron Kroese -The Impossible Race: Population Growth and the Fallacies of Agricultural Hope \ Hugh H. litis
PART III. Industrial Agriculture's Toxic Trail Chapter 4. Technological Takeover -Artificial Fertility: The Environmental Costs of Industrial Fertilizers \ Jason McKenney -Hidden Dimensions of Damage: Pesticides and Health \ Monica Moore -Untested, Unlabeled, and You're Eating It: The Health and Environmental Hazards of Genetically Engineered Food \ Joseph Mendelson Ill - Nuclear Lunch: The Dangers and Unknowns of Food Irradiation \ Michael Colby
Chapter 5. Ecological Impacts -Tilth and Technology: The Industrial Redesign of Our Nation's Soils \ Peter Warshall -Water: The Overtapped Resource \ Mark Briscoe -Our Forgotten Pollinators: Protecting the Birds and the Bees \ Mrill Ingram, Stephen Buchmann, and Gary-+ Nabhan -Can Agriculture and Biodiversity Coexist? \ Catherine Badgley -Wildlife Health \ Kelley R. Tucker
PART IV. Organic & Beyond: Revisioning Agriculture for the 21st Century Chapter 6. Name the Enemy -The End of Agribusiness: Dismantling the Mechanisms of Corporate Rule \ Dave Henson -Intellectual Property: Enhancing Corporate Monopoly and Bioserfdom \ Hope J. Shand -Globalization and Industrial Agriculture \ Debi Barker
Chapter 7. Going Organic & Beyond -Uncle Ben: Coin' Organic Just Like We Used To \ Jim Hightower -Organics at the Crossroads: The Past and the Future of the Organic Movement \ Michael Sligh -The Ethics of Eating: Why Environmentalism Starts at the Breakfast Table \ Alice Waters -Fully Integrated Food Systems: Regaining Connections between Farmers and Consumers \ Rebecca Spector -Community Food Security: A Promising Alternative to the Global Food System \ Andrew Fisher -Eco-Labels: Promoting Alternatives in the Marketplace \ Betsy Lydon -Farming with the Wild: A Conservation Approach to Agriculture \ Daniel Imhoff
Afterword Hope \ Wendell Berry Contributors Selected References and Readings Organizational Resources Index
