The land that feeds us

This book explores what farmers do, how and why they do it, and how their activities affect the rural landscapes of the Eastern US. Twenty-one chapters chart a suite of experiences of farming activity and landscape. The route traces the mainstream of American agriculture westward from the seedbed in southeastern Pennsylvania to the western edge of the Corn Belt in southwestern Minnesota, swings back through the dairy country from Wisconsin to New England, and through the fruit-farming area of southwestern Michigan. The route turns along the Atlantic Coast to the plainsland South, and it visits some of the "islands' of agricultural specialization within the area. Two final chapters explore the issue of too much good land at a time of overproduction and the family farm at the present and in the future. A programme of land retirement is advocated, as the family farm becomes increasingly more of a family business. -after Author