Audiobook13 hours
Restoration Agriculture: Real-World Permaculture for Farmers
Written by Mark Shepard
Narrated by Jonathan Todd Ross
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5/5
()
About this audiobook
Restoration Agriculture reveals how to sustainably grow perennial food crops that can feed us in our resource-compromised future.
The restoration agriculture system described in this award-winning book works! It is possible for humans to produce staple foods using perennial agricultural ecosystems that actually improve the quality of the environment. This can be done on a backyard, farm or ranch scale and is needed right now-on a global scale.
Restoration Agriculture explains how we can have all of the benefits of natural, perennial ecosystems and create agricultural systems that imitate nature in form and function while still providing for our food, building, fuel, and many other needs. Using the restoration agriculture system, an oak savanna mimic will produce more than twice the number of edible human calories per acre as an average acre of corn, never needs to be planted again, prevents erosion, creates oil, and can be managed with no fossil fuel inputs. This book, based on real-world practices, presents an alternative to the agriculture system of eradication and offers exciting hope for our future.
The restoration agriculture system described in this award-winning book works! It is possible for humans to produce staple foods using perennial agricultural ecosystems that actually improve the quality of the environment. This can be done on a backyard, farm or ranch scale and is needed right now-on a global scale.
Restoration Agriculture explains how we can have all of the benefits of natural, perennial ecosystems and create agricultural systems that imitate nature in form and function while still providing for our food, building, fuel, and many other needs. Using the restoration agriculture system, an oak savanna mimic will produce more than twice the number of edible human calories per acre as an average acre of corn, never needs to be planted again, prevents erosion, creates oil, and can be managed with no fossil fuel inputs. This book, based on real-world practices, presents an alternative to the agriculture system of eradication and offers exciting hope for our future.
Related to Restoration Agriculture
Related audiobooks
The Humane Economy: How Innovators and Enlightened Consumers are Transforming the Lives of Animals Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Composting Masterclass: Feed Your Soil Not your Plants Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Gardening and Growing Food Bundle, 2 in 1 bundle: Growing Season Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rewilding: The Radical New Science of Ecological Recovery Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Nature of Plants: An Introduction to How Plants Work Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Intelligent Gardner: Growing Nutrient-Dense Food Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Holistic Homesteading: A Guide to a Sustainable and Regenerative Lifestyle Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Gardening Hacks: 300+ Time and Money Saving Hacks Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Forager's Calendar Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Soil Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Bioneers Series 3-05: Soil And Soul the Future of Farming Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5In Defense of Plants: An Exploration into the Wonder of Plants Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Building Community Food Webs Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTeaming with Bacteria: The Organic Gardener’s Guide to Endophytic Bacteria and the Rhizophagy Cycle Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This Blessed Earth: A Year in the Life of an American Family Farm Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Mini Farming: Self-Sufficiency on 1/4 Acre Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Teaming With Nutrients: The Organic Gardener's Guide to Optimizing Plant Nutrition Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Bringing Nature Home: How You Can Sustain Wildlife with Native Plants, Updated and Expanded Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Good Husbandry: A Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Lives of Weeds: Opportunism, Resistance, Folly Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5The Seed Detective: Uncovering the Secret Histories of Remarkable Vegetables Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Secret Teachings of Plants: The Intelligence of the Heart in the Direct Perception of Nature Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Earth Moved: On the Remarkable Achievements of Earthworms Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Technology & Engineering For You
How to Build a Car: The Autobiography of the World’s Greatest Formula 1 Designer Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Our World from Scratch Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Design of Everyday Things Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Path Between the Seas Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Future of Geography: How the Competition in Space Will Change Our World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mini Farming: Self-Sufficiency on 1/4 Acre Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Elon Musk Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Einstein's Fridge: How the Difference Between Hot and Cold Explains the Universe Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Island of the Lost: Shipwrecked at the Edge of the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Knowing What We Know: The Transmission of Knowledge: From Ancient Wisdom to Modern Magic Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Perfectionists: How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Stuff Matters: Exploring the Marvelous Materials That Shape Our Man-made World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Battle for Your Brain: Defending the Right to Think Freely in the Age of Neurotechnology Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Four Battlegrounds: Power in the Age of Artificial Intelligence Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The End of the River Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle that Defined a Generation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fallout: The Hiroshima Cover-up and the Reporter Who Revealed It to the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Consider the Fork: A History of How We Cook and Eat Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Death in Mud Lick: A Coal Country Fight Against the Drug Companies that Delivered the Opioid Epidemic Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This Is What It Sounds Like: What the Music You Love Says About You Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ransomware Hunting Team: A Band of Misfits' Improbable Crusade to Save the World from Cybercrime Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for Restoration Agriculture
Rating: 4.7209302546511624 out of 5 stars
4.5/5
86 ratings6 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I am excited to learn more about creating a permaculture world after listening. good narration, straightforward. entertaining and informative. not a handbook on how to design your own permaculture backyard, but a great introduction to the field and its broader context.
2 people found this helpful
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Practical. Insightful and challenging the status quo of big Ag. Read on for inspiration and discover a perennial way for getting out food, fuel, and medicine.
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Biodiversity for the win! A great system for finding our way out of climate disaster using a win-win-win-win… approach.
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Was excited about learning about Permaculture but the author unnecessarily meanders without getting to the point.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5As the title suggests, this is a book about applying permaculture principles to farming [not just gardening]. Shepard is a technical writer, and is interested in principles [how] rather than values [why]. And from the rational standpoint, Shepard has come up with a solution to our agricultural crises. Anyone who wonders "how we're going to feed the world" should read this book.
There are a few flaws in his rhetoric. First, Shepard recommends against direct marketing and local economies, opting instead for wholesaling and commodity markets. This ties into his second set of issues, surrounding the word profit. Shepard suggests that farming isn't profitable. He is correct about this, but he then goes on how to describe that people can't make a living by farming. But making a profit and making a living are different things. There are plenty of people working at non-profits that are still alive. And I know a number of farmers whose livelihoods come from farming. Shepard is just using the word "profit" incorrectly.
But I can get how he's gotten the idea that farming isn't economically viable; because he doesn't use direct markets! Local economies are key to the success of "sustainable" food production. To use a rational term, local economies are efficient; global economies aren't.You can't have restoration agriculture without "restoration economics," and this is one of the shortcomings of Shepard's book. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I've been reading a lot of other permaculture materials, so there were few surprises here. Description of multistory cropping was quick, but understandable. Keyline contouring made lots of sense, particularly with farm photos. Shepard manages to cover concepts without the obnoxiously detailed artwork that most books resort to. Must find an organic source for hazelnut plants!