American Farms, American Food

John C. Hudson is professor and director of the Program in Geography at Northwestern University.Christopher R. Laingen is associate professor of geography at Eastern Illinois University.

Hudson (geography, Northwestern Univ.) and Laingen (geography, Eastern Illinois Univ.) have written extensively about the geography of agriculture. They readily acknowledge reliance on the Census of Agriculture and the National Agricultural Statistics Service, but achieve their purpose with an overview that provides understandable and meaningful context. Predictably, the authors begin with the evolution of agriculture in the Corn Belt. They also discuss integrated farming, today’s corn-soybean rotation, other grain crops, and the major livestock centers; at times, these discussions shift the geography to the coasts, and in the case of poultry, to the South. Chapters are also devoted to vegetable and fruit production (heavily influenced by California) and organic and locally produced food trends. This approach... provides a dispassionate, evenhanded examination of overall agricultural production—the casual reader might find these insights enlightening, such as the subtleties of direct foreign investment in US agriculture, the technical meaning of “organic,” and the development of the land reserve program, which has (in all likelihood) escaped the notice of most non-farm consumers. This work is appropriate for all readers and will be particularly useful in general library collections that need enhancement of agriculture, geography, and economics sections. Summing Up:Recommended. All readers.

• Chapter 1: Farms and FoodChapter 2: The Family FarmChapter 3: The Corn BeltChapter 4: Wheat and GrainsChapter 5: DairyChapter 6: Pork and BeefChapter 7: PoultryChapter 8: Fruits and VegetablesChapter 9: Organic Farms and Organic FoodChapter 10: The Reserved LandsAppendix: Keeping Track of Production