A Small Farm Future Making The Case For A Society Built Around Local Economies, Self Provisioning, Agricultural Diversity, And A Shared Earth

Description

A modern classic of the new agrarianism

"Chris Smaje...shows that the choice is clear. Either we have a small farm future, or we face collapse and extinction."--Vandana Shiva

"Every young person should read this book."--Richard Heinberg

In a groundbreaking debut, farmer and social scientist Chris Smaje argues that organising society around small-scale farming offers the soundest, sanest and most reasonable response to climate change and other crises of civilisation--and will yield humanity's best chance at survival.

Drawing on a vast range of sources from across a multitude of disciplines, A Small Farm Future analyses the complex forces that make societal change inevitable; explains how low-carbon, locally self-reliant agrarian communities can empower us to successfully confront these changes head on; and explores the pathways for delivering this vision politically.

Challenging both conventional wisdom and utopian blueprints, A Small Farm Future offers rigorous original analysis of wicked problems and hidden opportunities in a way that illuminates the path toward functional local economies, effective self-provisioning, agricultural diversity and a shared earth.

Author description

Chris Smaje has coworked a small farm in Somerset, southwest England, for the last twenty years. Previously, he was a university-based social scientist, working in the Department of Sociology at the University of Surrey and the Department of Anthropology at Goldsmiths College. Since switching focus to the practice and politics of agroecology, he's written for publications such as The Land, Dark Mountain, Permaculture magazine and Statistics Views, as well as academic journals such as Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems and the Journal of Consumer Culture. Chris is the author of A Small Farm Future, writes the blog at www.chrissmaje.com, and is a featured author at resilience.org.