Front-Cover
Half-title
Title page
Copyright information
Table of contents
List of figures
1 Introduction
2 Searching for a new model of food and farming
A confession of impasse, searching for a new beginning
Distributive justice as a critique of social ills
‘Transition’: a challenge to human imagining
3 The mainstream farming paradigm – what went wrong?
Three faces of alienation
The Malthusian spectre
Reductionism and the chemical paradigm
4 How systems change: crisis and rift
Two views on equilibrium
Regime shifts and the role of feedback
Introducing ‘panarchy’ – how systems are ruled
Phase-change: under capitalism and beyond
5 Embracing complexity: the earth system, land and soil
Picturing a world of diversity and interaction
The rich potential of co-operation
6 Dialectics of a (re)discovered sustainability
Pathways to a reconnection with indigenous thought
The ‘messy mix’: where new and old overlap
The realm of conscious visioning
7 Political dimensions – agriculture and class struggle
The weight of history: good and bad sides of ‘tradition’
A critique of work
How farming structure may relate to yield
Where capitalism made things worse
The abiding need to challenge stagnant order
8 Towards a new paradigm – practical guidelines
The ‘tame’ and the ‘wild’
The dialogue of human will with evolution
Seeds of oppression, seeds of hope
9 Regenerating the earth system, working with climate
Plants as solar power stations
The role of feedbacks in plant-climate interaction
10 Food, imperialism and dependency
The ‘Green Revolution’ in the structural logic of imperialism
Neo-colonialism’s harsh impact on the global South
An imperialism of resource flows, and how to fight it
Trade specialisation and the rise of globalism
Agriculture and capital accumulation
Resisting the co-optation of small farmers in a new regime of imperialism
11 Built systems, biomimicry and urban food-growing
The universality of structure
Physical applications of biomimicry to the sustainable city
Integration of urban farming with the hi-tech sector
A critical view of technocentrism
The role of food-related networks
Urban composting – the case for qualitative intensification
The troubled legacy of modernism
Perils of the neo-liberal city
12 Autonomy, radicalism and the commons
Co-optation: the lingering threat
Perverted discourses of ‘community’ and organics
Guerrilla gardening and the critique of the state
Debating the history and continued relevance of socialism
‘Commons’ as an abiding organisational solution
Bibliography
Index
Back-Cover