Fatal Harvest: The Tragedy
of Industrial Agriculture

Modern agriculture and its farms and production have slipped deceptively into the contemporary industrial aesthetic. Landscapes appear to be healthy and vibrant. Crops are thick and green. Wheat blows sensually in the wind. Unfortunately, we fail to notice the sterilized soils bathed in chemicals, fertilizers, and pesticides; nor do we notice the massive scale we've become so accustomed to. The primary objective of this book is to refocus the eye to see the totality of consequences that flow out of industrialized agriculture -- far beyond the fields.

In order to shed some necessary light on and increase public awareness about the ecological, cultural, economic, and health ramifications of the global industrial farming system, FDE collaborated with the International Center for Technology Assessment and its Center for Food Safety (CFS) to produce Fatal Harvest: The Tragedy of Industrial Agriculture. CFS founder and executive director Andrew Kimbrell -- author, attorney, and activist -- spearheaded the research team and project. Experts in a vast array of agricultural disciplines -- from cultural techniques to environmental impacts, history, philosophy, health and nutrition, and conservation -- have joined the effort, contributing thoroughly researched essays and photographs.

From shattering the myths of the conventional food system to cataloging its impacts (issue by issue, and crop by crop) to providing alternative viewpoints and paths ahead, Fatal Harvest makes an eloquent and powerful case for less toxic farming techniques as well as for the restoration of local resourcefulness, including agrarian and wild values. The book's final section offers a variety of perspectives on emerging efforts to raise the standards of organic production by integrating conservation and wildlife protection issues and farming, as well as developing more regionally diverse systems of production and distribution.

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