From the Good Earth: A Celebration of Growing Food Around the World. This item is unavailable.From the Good Earth: A Celebration of Growing Food Around the World

The magnificent photographs capture some timeless, placeless essence about tending crops. [Ableman] stuns us with his photographic images: the drama of terraced fields in the Peruvian Andes which seem to reach into the sky, Hopi Indians in the American desert winnowing red beans, mirrored almost exactly by a Karen tribeswoman in northern Thailand, and a refreshing, lush image from Burundi of picturesque round thatched huts in a sea of verdant Green. The physical journey is paralleled by a spiritual one ... there is infectious optimism ... and a colourful worldwide celebration of the glories of harvesting, marketing, cooking and eating.

This book is a tribute to agriculture and the great diversity of practices and customs that surround it. Ableman, a California organic farmer, presents a photographic essay with 170 full-color photographs of farming practices in China, Kenya, Burundi, Italy, Peru, the American Southwest, and elsewhere. His photos include fields that rely on many different cropping practices, markets displaying an array of foods for interested buyers, urban plots, and plants grown in backyard gardens and pots. We catch a glimpse of people of all ages and many cultures involved in producing and selling food and their links with community and culture. The accompanying text offers Ableman's perspectives on the contrast between industrial agriculture, which uses heavy machinery and chemicals, and the labor-intensive, nonchemical approaches still used in most of the world. He urges us to understand the interconnections between our food, our health, our communities, and our environment for the sake of the planet's future. Recommended.
- Irwin Weintraub, Rutgers Univ. Lib., Piscataway, N.J.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.