Food web theory has experienced a proliferation of research seeking to address human impacts on ecological sustainability. Brings together outcomes from population-, community-, and ecosystem-level approaches under the common currency of energy or material fluxes. Increased fluxes of energy and material tend to destabilize populations, communities, and whole ecosystems. Uses this framework to discuss the stability and sustainability of ecological systems and demonstrates that there is clear empirical evidence that the structures supporting ecological systems have been dangerously eroded.

(ENVIRONMENT * FOOD/AGRICULTURE * FOOD WEBS)

Challenges widely held assumptions about the causes and consequences of the “obesity epidemic,” and questions to what extent prevention efforts are sensible, efficacious, or ethical. We produce cheap, over-processed food to support a political economy of bulimia – one that promotes consumption while also insisting in thinness. Promoting food that is local, organic and farm fresh can’t be a remedy for obesity; it will reinforce class and race inequalities and neglect other possible explanations of the rise in obesity, including environmental toxins.

(HEALTH * OBESITY * FOOD/AGRICULTURE)

Animals help humans. With growing concern over climate change and food shortages, how we treat animals on which we depend for survival needs to be put squarely on the public agenda. Calls for rethinking animal welfare currently tinged by anthropomorphism and claims of animal consciousness; both of them lack firm empirical evidence and are freighted with controversy and high emotions. Animal-welfare efforts must focus on science and the critical role animals play in human welfare.

(ANIMAL WELFARE * FOOD AND ANIMAL WELFARE)

On the forces that shaped agricultural policies in the US during the last 80 years. The preface to the new edition explores how the history of US agriculture helps explain the world food crisis of 2007-8, which saw historic high food process lead to increased world hunger, food riots, and political instability across the globe.

(FOOD/AGRICULTURE * AGRICULTURE IN THE US * FOOD CRISIS)

Today’s urban farmers seek to transform our national food system. The authors document 12 successful urban farm programs, from an alternative school for girls in Detroit to a backyard food swap in New Orleans and a restaurant supply garden on a rooftop in Brooklyn. Practical advice for budding farmers spans composting, keeping livestock in the city, decontaminating toxic soil, and changing zoning laws. [Also see Food and the City: Urban Agriculture and the New Food Revolution by Jennifer Cockrell-King (Prometheus Books, Feb 2012, 355p).]

(FOOD/AGRICULTURE * URBAN FARMING)

Beginning as a small protest to the industrialization of agriculture in the 1920s, organic farming has become a significant force in agricultural policy, marketing, and research. No longer dismissed as unscientific and coungterproductive, organic techniques are now taken seriously. Organic farming is both dynamic and forward-looking but also rooted in tradition. Explores how organic farming should meet new challenges such as globalization, emergence of new production techniques, and growing concern over equity and social justice in agriculture. Features case histories of important organic institutions in various countries.

(FOOD/AGRICULTURE * ORGANIC FARMING)

There’s just a three-day supply of food available for any given city due to complex, just-in-time international supply chains. The system is not only vulnerable but also environmentally unsustainable for the long term. Examines alternative food systems in cities worldwide—London (gardeners grow on some 30,000allotment plots), Paris, Russia (65% of Moscow households grow some of their own food), Vancouver (promoting edible landscaping), Toronto, Los Angeles (supporting 100 schoolyard food gardens), Milwaukee, Detroit (Hantz Frms will be “the world’s largest urban farm”), Chicago, New York (now home to two major rooftop farms), and Cuba (“urban agriculture on a national scale”)-- that are shortening their food chains, growing food within city limits, and taking “food security” in their own hands. Growing spaces in the cities include rooftops, backyards, vacant lots, along roadways, and even in “vertical farms” reusing industrial buildings and derelict inner-city lots. [NOTE: A fascinating and upbeat tour of many exciting projects.]

(FOOD AND AGRICULTURE * CITIES AND FOOD * URBAN AGRICULTURE * ALTERNATIVE FOOD SYSTEMS)

An overview of the global food crisis—and how it can be solved. Emphasizes the latest agro-ecological innovations and their global applicability, while offering insights into poverty, restoring rural economies, creating livelihoods, sustaining the natural resource base, international politics, and gender equality.

(FOOD/AGRICULTURE * GLOBAL FOOD CRISIS * AGRO ECOLOGICAL INNOVATIONS)

A journalist who focuses on city planning and food policy observes that our food supply is riddled with hidden environmental, economic, and health care costs and beset by rising prices. The recipe for community food security is based on leading innovations in North America. Local fresh sustainable food is affordable and widely available if cities bring food production home by: 1) neighborhood gardening, cooking, and composting programs; 2) rebuilding local food processing, storage, and distribution systems; 3) investing in farmers markets and community supported agriculture; 4) reducing obesity through local fresh food initiatives in schools, colleges, and universities; and 5) ending inner-city food deserts.

(CITIES * FOOD/AGRICULTURE * URBAN FOOD REVOLUTION)

Global environmental change represents an immediate and unprecedented threat to the food security of hundreds of millions of people, especially those who depend on small-scale agriculture for their livelihoods. Agriculture and related activities also contribute to climate change, by intensifying greenhouse gas emissions and altering the land surface. Provides a synthesis of the current state of knowledge and thinking on the relationship between global environmental change and food security; stresses the need for action at a regional, rather than international or national, level; and looks forward towards adaptation and mitigation strategies for the next decade.

(CLIMATE CHANGE AND FOOD SECURITY * FOOD AND AGRICULTURE)