PRESS RELEASE  – December 10, 2009
Contact: Elizabeth Wolf, Good Medicine Media
(402) 304-5757, elizabeth@goodmedicine.biz

The Call of the Land – 2nd edition
 “An Agrarian Primer for the 21st Century”

~ Food security, Economic stability, Environmental repair ~

In the face of rising food prices, author Steven McFadden has written a new, expanded edition of The Call of the Land: An Agrarian Primer for the 21st Century. The 2nd edition will be published April 4, 2011 by NorLightsPress.com.

The acclaimed 1st edition was named one of the “Best Books of 2009” by Food Systems Network NYC. The 2nd edition features dozens more positive models plus two new chapters, on “Digital Responses” and “Artistic and Cultural Responses.”

The 2nd edition offers an effective way for people to respond to the changing economy and environment by learning about and becoming involved in local foods security. The book is loaded with positive models of ways people are meeting the challenge of caring for the land and providing an ample supply of clean food.

Chef and local foods activist Deborah Madison says, “The great value that The Call of the Land offers is the encouragement that comes from seeing what so many others are doing to revitalize America’s agrarian roots and branches. Steven McFadden has pointed the reader to hundreds of grassroots efforts to join, emulate, or use as inspiration to plant our own gardens in whatever form makes the best sense for each of us. A hopeful work!”

The positive models featured in the book include:

  • Growing Power empowers inner-city youth in Milwaukee to raise healthy foods and reduce obesity and diabetes in their communities.
  • One family’s urban homestead in Pasadena, California grows 6,000 pounds of produce on a mere fifth of an acre.
  • Sharing Backyards links landless gardeners with property owners in British Columbia.
  • Growing Minds promotes local foods in the schools, hosts farm field trips, and sponsors school gardens in Southern states.
  • The Fruit Tree Project gathers untended fruit and donates the harvest to the needy in Portland, Oregon.
  • American Farmland Trust protects over 1 million acres of farmland from development.
  • Gardeners and farmers are learning how to extend the growing season with cold frames, hoop houses, and high tunnels.
  • Farmers markets and CSAs are accepting food stamps to help low-income people access fresh fruit and vegetables.
  • Congregation Supported Agriculture has established itself as a true phenomenon, with more churches, temples, and mosques adapting the typical CSA model for their community.
  • The Food Depot’s “Plant a Row for the Hungry” program encourages home gardeners to donate produce to local food pantries in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
  • City Farmer teaches people how to plant edible rooftops in Canada. They have also been among the vast network of Digital Agrarian pioneers who are re-shaping our relationship with the land and with each other.
  • The Bone Creek Museum of Agrarian Art in David City, Nebraska is honoring and perpetuating the role of artistic vision in relationship to the land and the people who cultivate the land.

The Call of the Land gives voice to a swelling chorus of “millennial agrarians” who are working in cities, suburbs, countryside, schools, churches, companies, and campuses to create a clean, secure, sustainable food system.

The Call of the Land is an excellent outreach tool for schools and farms, CSAs, farmers markets, and other venues to help educate and build community support. The more the community knows about what sustainable initiatives are doing for the land, for food, and for life, then the more strongly the community will stand in support of these positive, proactive responses to the call of the land.

Steven McFadden of Lincoln, Nebraska, is co-author of Farms of Tomorrow (1991), America’s first book on Community Supported Agriculture (CSA). He also co-authored Farms of Tomorrow Revisited (1998). A veteran journalist, he has covered agrarian issues for over 35 years. McFadden is the author of eight other non-fiction books, including Profiles in Wisdom, Legend of the Rainbow Warriors, and Odyssey of the 8th Fire

To order The Call of the Land:
http://www.norlightspress.com/our-books-cotl.html

To stay current:
Author’s blog: http://www.thecalloftheland.com

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Media contact:
elizabeth@goodmedicine.biz (402) 304-5757

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