This long-needed book highlights how traditional Mexican agriculture has changed according to environmental, climatic, geographical, social and cultural conditions. Grounded in archaeological-historical data from interrelated research of various scientific disciplines, the book also draws on studies made by anthropologists of varied small-scale agricultural groups. Traditional Mexican Agriculture is the result of a holistic study of Mexican agriculture. It offers the reader a perspective of traditional agriculture in Mexico from social, cultural and ecological Anthropology, Ethnology, regional and environmental History, and Agroecology, to help obtain sustainable agroecology where human societies obtain better ways of life and a healthy and nutritious food system. The book further aims to recover ideas, management, and components of local knowledge of small-scale farmers. Pitched at university students and academics, as well as researchers and developers of agricultural matters, this book will be ideal reading at agrarian universities and related institutions. It provides a basis for future studies in sustainable agricultural systems in this region.

The North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, has been one of the most hotly contested political and economic issues of the past 20 years. Contrary to much of the discussion in the U. S. media, this volume examines small family farms in Mexico which have fared worse economically since NAFTA s passage. A distinguished group of contributors provide historical background, policy analysis, case studies, comparisons with large agribusiness corporations, and recommendations for ways to improve the situation of small farms in the future. This volume will be essential to the understanding of multinational trade issues and agriculture in the twenty-first century."

"A powerful polemic against agricultural technology." —Nature A major new book that shows the world already has the tools to feed itself, without expanding industrial agriculture or adopting genetically modified seeds, from the Small Planet Institute expert Few challenges are more daunting than feeding a global population projected to reach 9.7 billion in 2050—at a time when climate change is making it increasingly difficult to successfully grow crops. In response, corporate and philanthropic leaders have called for major investments in industrial agriculture, including genetically modified seed technologies. Reporting from Africa, Mexico, India, and the United States, Timothy A. Wise's Eating Tomorrow discovers how in country after country agribusiness and its well-heeled philanthropic promoters have hijacked food policies to feed corporate interests. Most of the world, Wise reveals, is fed by hundreds of millions of small-scale farmers, people with few resources and simple tools but a keen understanding of what and how to grow food. These same farmers—who already grow more than 70 percent of the food eaten in developing countries—can show the way forward as the world warms and population increases. Wise takes readers to remote villages to see how farmers are rebuilding soils with ecologically sound practices and nourishing a diversity of native crops without chemicals or imported seeds. They are growing more and healthier food; in the process, they are not just victims in the climate drama but protagonists who have much to teach us all.

This volume sets out a strategy for raising rural incomes which emphasises the creation of diversified rural economies with opportunities within and outside agriculture.

The report, comprising a main report and case studies on Canada, France, Greece, Japan, New Zealand, Norway and Switzerland, addresses socio-economic developement of rural areas.

Mexican Americans have traditionally had a strong land ethic, believing that humans must respect la tierra because it is the source of la vida. As modern market forces exploit the earth, communities struggle to control their own ecological futures, and several studies have recorded that Mexican Americans are more impacted by environmental injustices than are other national-origin groups. In our countryside, agricultural workers are poisoned by pesticides, while farmers have lost ancestral lands to expropriation. And in our polluted inner cities, toxic wastes sicken children in their very playgrounds and homes. This book addresses the struggle for environmental justice, grassroots democracy, and a sustainable society from a variety of Mexican American perspectives. It draws on the ideas and experiences of people from all walks of life—activists, farmworkers, union organizers, land managers, educators, and many others—who provide a clear overview of the most critical ecological issues facing Mexican-origin people today. The text is organized to first provide a general introduction to ecology, from both scientific and political perspectives. It then presents an environmental history for Mexican-origin people on both sides of the border, showing that the ecologically sustainable Norteño land use practices were eroded by the conquest of El Norte by the United States. It finally offers a critique of the principal schools of American environmentalism and introduces the organizations and struggles of Mexican Americans in contemporary ecological politics. Devon Peña contrasts tenets of radical environmentalism with the ecological beliefs and grassroots struggles of Mexican-origin people, then shows how contemporary environmental justice struggles in Mexican American communities have challenged dominant concepts of environmentalism. Mexican Americans and the Environment is a didactically sound text that introduces students to the conceptual vocabularies of ecology, culture, history, and politics as it tells how competing ideas about nature have helped shape land use and environmental policies. By demonstrating that any consideration of environmental ethics is incomplete without taking into account the experiences of Mexican Americans, it clearly shows students that ecology is more than nature study but embraces social issues of critical importance to their own lives.