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61 books match the query 'Agribusiness' and 16 start with t

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The American Farmer and the Export Market

Austin Dowell

University of Minnesota Press, 1934

The American Farmer and the Export Market was first published in 1934. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.Shall we isolate ourselves behind the walls of national self-sufficiency and do without what we cannot produce? Or shall we try to break down trade barriers and restore export markets? How can we escape the intolerable combination of abundance and poverty?“We have enough resources in the United States to provide for twice our present standard of living,” Secretary Wallace has asserted. This book is the most comprehensive analysis yet published of the problems that must be solved, the long-time plans that must be thought out, before America can abolish its “rural slums” and achieve the full benefit of its enormous resources.Self-sufficiency and continued or increased exportation each has its price. Professors Dowell and Jesness show just what we may expect to gain or to lose from reducing production, shifting crops, abandoning sub-marginal land, boosting farm prices, and legislating trade barriers. They point out the relationship between agricultural and industrial recovery and between our policy in regard to world markets and the possibility of collecting our foreign debts.The authors present facts, not theories – the pertinent facts on both sides of the most vital question that the American farmer faces today – After the AAA, what?

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The Cassava Transformation

Africa's Best-Kept Secret

Felix I. Nweke

Michigan State University Press, 2002

Cassava is Africa's "poverty fighter" and second most important food crop. This book discusses Cassava's real role and traces research over the past 65 years. The "Cassava transformation" that is now underway in Africa has changed this traditional, reserve crop to a high-yield cash crop. However, Cassava is being neglected by governments and donor agencies because of myths and half-truths about its nutritional value and role in farm systems.

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The City Man’s Guide to the Farm Problem

Willard W. Cochrane

University of Minnesota Press, 1965

The City Man's Guide to the Farm Problem was first published in 1965. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.

Few domestic questions are so controversial as the farm problem, yet the average city man finds it difficult to understand the basic issues involved. In this book Professor Cochrane describes for the layman the nature and causes of the commercial farm problem and the rural poverty problem and provides the basis for making informed judgments about these problems and their possible solutions. He analyzes the economic and political forces which are at work in the farm economy, explains the organization of modern agriculture, showing the unique structure of farming, and draws a vivid picture of the revolutionary developments which have taken place in agriculture. He discusses behavior patterns of farmers and consumers as they relate to the farm economy, and the role of government in the farm industry and in the lives of farmers.

The analysis and discussion make clear the reasons why the government is so deeply involved in farm issues and point up what will be needed in order to make some headway toward solutions of the problems. Professor Cochrane emphasizes that there is no perfect solution to the farm problem but he provides the information and analyses from which the reader can gain a better understanding of the issues.

Sixteen photographic illustrations show old and new methods of farming and types of equipment. There are also a number of charts, graphs, and tables.

Willard W. Cochrane is dean of international programs and a professor of agricultural economics at the University of Minnesota. He was director of agricultural economics in the U.S. Department of Agriculture and economic adviser to the Secretary of Agriculture from 1961 to 1964, and served as agricultural adviser to John F. Kennedy during the 1960 presidential campaign. He is the author also of Farm Prices: Myth and Reality.

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The Collectivization of Agriculture in Communist Eastern Europe

Comparison and Entanglements

Constantin Iordachi

Central European University Press, 2014

This book explores the interrelated campaigns of agricultural collectivization in the USSR and in the communist dictatorships established in Soviet-dominated Eastern Europe. Despite the profound, long-term societal impact of collectivization, the subject has remained relatively underresearched. The volume combines detailed studies of collectivization in individual Eastern European states with issueoriented comparative perspectives at regional level. Based on novel primarysources, it proposes a reappraisal of the theoretical underpinnings and research agenda of studies on collectivization in Eastern Europe.The contributions provide up-to-date overviews of recent research in the field and promote new approaches to the topic, combining historical comparisons with studies of transnational transfers and entanglements.

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The Cow with Ear Tag #1389

Kathryn Gillespie

University of Chicago Press, 2018

To translate the journey from a living cow to a glass of milk into tangible terms, Kathryn Gillespie set out to follow the moments in the life cycles of individual animals—animals like the cow with ear tag #1389. She explores how the seemingly benign practice of raising animals for milk is just one link in a chain that affects livestock across the agricultural spectrum. Gillespie takes readers to farms, auction yards, slaughterhouses, and even rendering plants to show how living cows become food. The result is an empathetic look at cows and our relationship with them, one that makes both their lives and their suffering real.

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The Economics of Food Price Volatility

Edited by Jean-Paul Chavas, David Hummels, and Brian D. Wright

University of Chicago Press, 2014

There has been an increase in food price instability in recent years, with varied consequences for farmers, market participants, and consumers. Before policy makers can design schemes to reduce food price uncertainty or ameliorate its effects, they must first understand the factors that have contributed to recent price instability. Does it arise primarily from technological or weather-related supply shocks, or from changes in demand like those induced by the growing use of biofuel? Does financial speculation affect food price volatility?

The researchers who contributed to The Economics of Food Price Volatility address these and other questions. They examine the forces driving both recent and historical patterns in food price volatility, as well as the effects of various public policies in affecting this volatility. The chapters include studies of the links between food and energy markets, the impact of biofuel policy on the level and variability of food prices, and the effects of weather-related disruptions in supply. The findings shed light on the way price volatility affects the welfare of farmers, traders, and consumers.

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The Intended and Unintended Effects of U.S. Agricultural and Biotechnology Policies

Edited by Joshua S. Graff Zivin and Jeffrey M. Perloff

University of Chicago Press, 2012

Using economic models and empirical analysis, this volume examines a wide range of agricultural and biofuel policy issues and their effects on American agricultural and related agrarian insurance markets. Beginning with a look at the distribution of funds by insurance programs—created to support farmers but often benefiting crop processors instead—the book then examines the demand for biofuel and the effects of biofuel policies on agricultural price uncertainty. Also discussed are genetically engineered crops, which are assuming an increasingly important role in arbitrating tensions between energy production, environmental protection, and the global food supply. Other contributions discuss the major effects of genetic engineering on worldwide food markets. By addressing some of the most challenging topics at the intersection of agriculture and biotechnology, this volume informs crucial debates.

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The Marketing of Farm Products

Studies in the Organization of the Twin Cities Market

H. Price

University of Minnesota Press, 1927

The Marketing of Farm Products was first published in 1927. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.Fourteen specialists, including Professor John D. Black of Harvard University, and Dr. Holbrook Working, economist of the Stanford University Food Research Institute cooperated in these studies under the editorship of Professor H. Bruce Price.The book is designed as a text for use in high schools and college classes in agricultural economics and is equipped with references for reading, tables, charts, maps, and an index. In addition to chapters describing the organization of the Minneapolis-St. Paul market for grain, hay, livestock, potatoes, dairy products, fruits, and vegetables, there are included discussions of the historical geographical, and theoretical aspects of the subject. It will prove a valuable reference work also for businessmen, and producers and consumers of farm products in the Twin Cities market area—a territory extending west and north into Montana and Canada, and east and south into Wisconsin and Iowa.

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The Master Cheesemakers of Wisconsin

James Norton and Becca Dilley

University of Wisconsin Press, 2009

This book—beautifully photographed and engagingly written—introduces hardworking, resourceful men and women who represent an artisanal craft that has roots in Europe but has been a Wisconsin tradition since the 1850s. Wisconsin produces more than 600 varieties of cheese, from massive wheels of cheddar and swiss to bricks of brick and limburger, to such specialties as crescenza-stracchino and juustoleipa. These masters combine tradition, technology, artistry, and years of dedicated learning—in a profession that depends on fickle, living ingredients—to create the rich tastes and beautiful presentation of their skillfully crafted products.
Certification as a Master Cheesemaker typically takes almost fifteen years. An applicant must hold a cheesemaking license for at least ten years, create one or two chosen varieties of cheese for at least five years, take more than two years of university courses, consent to constant testing of their cheese and evaluation of their plant, and pass grueling oral and written exams to be awarded the prestigious title.
James Norton and Becca Dilley interviewed these dairy artisans, listened to their stories, tasted their cheeses, and explored the plants where they work. They offer here profiles of forty-three active Master Cheesemakers of Wisconsin, as well as a glossary of cheesemaking terms, suggestions of operations that welcome visitors for tours, tasting notes and suggested food pairings, and tasty nuggets (shall we say curds?) of information on everything to do with cheese.

Winner, Best Midwest Regional Interest Book, Midwest Book Awards

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The Nature of the Future

Agriculture, Science, and Capitalism in the Antebellum North

Emily Pawley

University of Chicago Press, 2020

The Nature of the Future plumbs the innovative, far-ranging, and sometimes downright strange agricultural schemes of nineteenth-century farms in the northern US.

The nostalgic mist surrounding farms can make it hard to write their history, encrusting them with stereotypical rural virtues and unrealistically separating them from markets, capitalism, and urban influences. The Nature of the Future dispels this mist, focusing on a place and period of enormous agricultural vitality—antebellum New York State—to examine the largest, most diverse, and most active scientific community in nineteenth-century America. Emily Pawley shows how “improving” farmers practiced a science where conflicting visions of the future landscape appeared and evaporated in quick succession. Drawing from US history, environmental history, and the history of science, and extensively mining a wealth of antebellum agricultural publications, The Nature of the Future reveals how improvers transformed American landscapes and American ideas of expertise, success, and exploitation from the ground up.

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The Oil Palm Complex

Smallholders, Agribusiness and the State in Indonesia and Malaysia

Edited by Robert Cramb and John F. McCarthy

National University of Singapore Press, 2016

The oil palm industry has transformed rural livelihoods and landscapes across wide swathes of Indonesia and Malaysia, generating wealth along with economic, social, and environmental controversy. Who benefits and who loses from oil palm development? Can oil palm development provide a basis for inclusive and sustainable rural development?

Based on detailed studies of specific communities and plantations and an analysis of the regional political economy of oil palm, this book unpicks the dominant policy narratives, business strategies, models of land acquisition, and labour-processes. It presents the oil palm industry in Malaysia and Indonesia as a complex system in which land, labour and capital are closely interconnected. Understanding this complex is a prerequisite to developing better strategies to harness the oil palm boom for a more equitable and sustainable pattern of rural development.

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The Profit of the Earth

The Global Seeds of American Agriculture

Courtney Fullilove

University of Chicago Press, 2017

While there is enormous public interest in biodiversity, food sourcing, and sustainable agriculture, romantic attachments to heirloom seeds and family farms have provoked misleading fantasies of an unrecoverable agrarian past. The reality, as Courtney Fullilove shows, is that seeds are inherently political objects transformed by the ways they are gathered, preserved, distributed, regenerated, and improved. In The Profit of the Earth, Fullilove unearths the history of American agricultural development and of seeds as tools and talismans put in its service.

Organized into three thematic parts, The Profit of the Earth is a narrative history of the collection, circulation, and preservation of seeds. Fullilove begins with the political economy of agricultural improvement, recovering the efforts of the US Patent Office and the nascent US Department of Agriculture to import seeds and cuttings for free distribution to American farmers. She then turns to immigrant agricultural knowledge, exploring how public and private institutions attempting to boost midwestern wheat yields drew on the resources of willing and unwilling settlers. Last, she explores the impact of these cereal monocultures on biocultural diversity, chronicling a fin-de-siècle Ohio pharmacist’s attempt to source Purple Coneflower from the diminishing prairie. Through these captivating narratives of improvisation, appropriation, and loss, Fullilove explores contradictions between ideologies of property rights and common use that persist in national and international development—ultimately challenging readers to rethink fantasies of global agriculture’s past and future.

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The Soybean Industry

With Special Reference to the Competitive Position of the Minnesota Producer and Processor

Ray A. Goldberg

University of Minnesota Press, 1952

The Soybean Industry was first published in 1952. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.

The rapid development of the soybean industry in the United States is reflected in the growth of the industry in Minnesota, a state that now ranks sixth in total production. This state was one of the last to develop a soybean crop, but in the decade from 1940 to 1950 the dollar value of its crop rose from $76,000 to $37,000,000.

Because the industry is a new and important one on the agricultural front, producers and processors in the industry, as well as members of the grain trade and agricultural economists, are faced with the problem of ascertaining the probably future trends of the industry. This study provides a factual basis for the industry's future planning in Minnesota and in other major soybean-producing and processing states.

Since the total picture of supply and demand and the operation of the industry within a single state are interrelated and interdependent, the study describes the elements of production, utilization, and processing on international, national, and state levels. These factors are then correlated with significant aspects of transportation, storage, commodity markets, and price formulation for an analysis of the competitive position of the industry in Minnesota. In conclusion, the future of the industry as a whole as well as specifically in Minnesota is estimated.

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The War on Wine

Prohibition, Neoprohibition, and American Culture

Victor W. Geraci

University of Nevada Press, 2023

The development of an American wine ethos.

The history of wine is a tale of capitalist production and consumer experience, and early Americans embraced the idea of having their own wine culture. But many began to believe that excessive alcohol consumption had become a moral, ethical, economic, political, social, and health conundrum. The result was a national on-again, off-again relationship with the concept of an American wine culture.

Citizens struggled to build a wine culture patterned after their diasporic European custom of wine as a moderating beverage that was part of a healthy diet. Yet, as America grew, untold attempts to create a wine culture failed due to climate, pests, diseases, wars, and depressions, resulting in some people considering the nation an alcoholic republic. Thus began an anti-alcohol culture war aimed at restricting or prohibiting alcoholic beverages.

With the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment (Prohibition), a culture war started between wet and dry proponents. After the repeal of Prohibition, the decimated wine industry responded by forming the Wine Institute to rebrand wine’s role in American society, after which neoprohibitionists attempted to restrict alcohol availability and consumption. To confront these aggressive actions, the Wine Institute hired politically trained John A. De Luca to navigate the new attacks and pushed for rebranding wine as a cultural spirit with health benefits.

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Transforming Masculine Rule

Agriculture and Rural Development in the European Union

Elisabeth Prügl

University of Michigan Press, 2011

"The premise of mainstreaming gender is to bring equality concerns into every aspect of policy-making, and this brave book offers a close look at how feminists have taken up the challenge to transform the hidden dynamics of male domination in agricultural policy in Europe. In contrast to the automatic assumption that (neo)liberal policy always works against women’s interests, Prügl demonstrates the potential for feminist ju-jitsu to take advantage of multiple levels of governance to empower women in some circumstances. Although feminists were not always successful, the story of their efforts to remake agricultural policy should encourage activists to look for points of leverage in this and other contested and changing multilevel power systems."
---Myra Marx Ferree, University of Wisconsin

"Information on policy development, conflicts about improving the status of farm women, and using rural development policies to foster gender equality is hard to access in English and extremely useful for researchers concerned with the specifics of gender equality policy in the EU."
---Alison Woodward, Institute for European Studies, Vrije Universiteit Brussel

"This book is a must-read for scholars interested in the gendered process of global restructuring. Elisabeth Prügl succeeds superbly in teasing out the power politics involved in European agricultural policy. Through the lens of a feminist-constructivist approach, she makes visible the multiple mechanisms of gendered power within the state. This very lucid narrative is a milestone in a new generation of feminist theoretical scholarship."
---Brigitte Young, University of Muenster, Germany

Taking West and East Germany as case studies, Elisabeth Prügl shows how European agricultural policy has cemented long-standing gender-based inequalities and how feminists have used liberalization as an opportunity to challenge such inequalities. Through a comparison of the EU’s rural development program known as LEADER as it played out in the Altmark region in the German East and in the Danube/Bavarian Forest region in the West, Prügl provides a close-up view of the power politics involved in government policies and programs.

In identifying mechanisms of power (refusal, co-optation, compromise, normalization, and silencing of difference), Prügl illustrates how these mechanisms operate in arguments over gender relations within the state. Her feminist-constructivist approach to global restructuring as a gendered process brings into view multiple levels of governance and the variety of gender constructions operating in different societies. Ultimately, Prügl offers a new understanding of patriarchy as diverse, contested, and in flux.

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