agriculture

This fourth issue continues the journal’s exploration of the scientific paradigms of global environmental history.

Economic historian Paolo Malanima reviews a work of ambitious scale by geographer Ian Gordon Simmons.

Under the European colonial powers, agricultural methods and techniques, along with well-organized routines in sugar production, were developed on the Caribbean islands with a view to managing sugar plantations as efficiently as possible. The results were in many cases deforestation, impoverished soils, and erosion.

“Cooperating with nature, instead of fighting nature. To observe nature and ascertain which plants support one another.” These are key concepts for organic farmer Sepp Holzer and the founding principles of permaculture.

This exploration of the deepening crisis of food security in India looks at four case studies, dealing respectively with Punjab, Warangal, Kalahandi, and Bellary. These are interspersed by insights into a movement in the Himalayas that may offer alternatives in the form of sustainable agricultural systems, which revive traditional agricultural practices (Beej Bachao Andolan).

A political thriller about GMOs and freedom of speech.

A portrait of Michael Simml, a pioneering organic farmer based in the Bavarian Forest, and his methods of yielding the highest returns from the most challenging of soils.