By the year 2050, Earth's population will double. If we continue with current farming practices, vast amounts of wilderness will be lost, millions of birds and billions of insects will die, and the public will lose billions of dollars as a consequence of environmental degradation. Clearly, there must be a better way to meet the need for increased food production. Written as part memoir, part instruction, and part contemplation, Tomorrow's Table argues that a judicious blend of two important strands of agriculture--genetic engineering and organic farming--is key to helping feed the world's growing population in an ecologically balanced manner. Pamela Ronald, a geneticist, and her husband, Raoul Adamchak, an organic farmer, take the reader inside their lives for roughly a year, allowing us to look over their shoulders so that we can see what geneticists and organic farmers actually do. The reader sees the problems that farmers face, trying to provide larger yields without resorting to expensive or environmentally hazardous chemicals, a problem that will loom larger and larger as the century progresses. They learn how organic farmers and geneticists address these problems. This book is for consumers, farmers, and policy decision makers who want to make food choices and policy that will support ecologically responsible farming practices. It is also for anyone who wants accurate information about organic farming, genetic engineering, and their potential impacts on human health and the environment.

"From the start, farmers and consumers opposed the marketers' noxious shill. But more than a century of collusion among advertisers, editors, scientists, large-scale farmers, government agencies - and even Dr. Seuss - convinced most farmers to use deadly chemicals, hormones, antibiotics, and, more recently, genetically modified organisms." "Akin to seminal works on the topic like Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, Arthur Kallet and F. J. Schlink's 100,000,000 Guinea Pigs, and Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, The War on Bugs - richly illustrated with dozens of original advertisements and promotions - details both the chemical industry's relentless efforts and the recurring waves of resistance by generations of consumers, farmers, and activists against toxic food, a struggle that continues today but with deep roots in the long rise of industrial agriculture."--BOOK JACKET.

How agricultural scientists and growers in California have cooperated—and struggled—in shaping the state's multi-billion-dollar farm industry. Just south of San Francisco lies California's Salinas Valley, the heart of a multi-billion dollar agricultural industry that dominates U. S. vegetable production. How did the sleepy valley described in the stories of John Steinbeck become the nation's “salad bowl”? In Cultivating Science, Harvesting Power, Christopher R. Henke explores the ways that science helped build the Salinas Valley and California's broader farm industry. Henke focuses on the case of University of California “farm advisors,” scientists stationed in counties throughout the state who have stepped forward to help growers deal with crises ranging from labor shortages to plagues of insects. These disruptions in what Henke terms industrial agriculture's “ecology of power” provide a window onto how agricultural scientists and growers have collaborated—and struggled—in shaping this industry. Through these interventions, Henke argues, science has served as a mechanism of repair for industrial agriculture. Basing his analysis on detailed ethnographic and historical research, Henke examines the history of state-sponsored farm advising—in particular, its roots in Progressive Era politics—and looks at both past and present practices by farm advisors in the Salinas Valley. He goes on to examine specific examples, including the resolution of a farm labor crisis during World War II at the Spreckels Sugar Company, the use of field trials for promoting new farming practices, and farm advisors' and growers' responses to environmental issues. Beyond this, Henke argues that the concept of repair is broadly applicable to other cases and that expertise can be deployed more generally to encourage change for the future of American agriculture.