Patricia Allen – författare

Everywhere you look people are more aware of what they eat and where their food comes from. In a cafeteria in Los Angeles, children make their lunchtime food choices at fresh-fruit and salad bars stocked with local foods. In a community garden in New York, low-income residents are producing organically grown fruits and vegetables for their own use and to sell at market. In Madison, Wisconsin, shoppers select their food from a bounty of choices at a vibrant farmers’ market. Together at the Table is about people throughout the United States who are building successful alternatives to the contemporary agrifood system and their prospects for the future. At the heart of these efforts are the movements for sustainable agriculture and community food security. Both movements seek to reconstruct the agrifood system—the food production chain, from the growing of crops to food production and distribution—to become more ecologically sound, economically viable, and socially just. Allen describes the ways in which people working in these movements view the world and how they see their place in challenging and reshaping the agrifood system. She also shows how ideas and practices of sustainable agriculture and community food security have already woven their way into the dominant agrifood institutions. Allen explores the possibilities this process may hold for improving social and environmental justice in the American agrifood system.Together at the Table is an important reminder that much work still remains to be done. Now that the ideas and priorities of alternative food movements have taken hold, it is time for the next—even more challenging—step. Alternative agrifood movements must acknowledge and address the deeper structural and cultural patterns that constrain the long-term resolution of social and environmental problems in the agrifood system.

Ten years ago, sustainable agriculture was not considered a viable option within the food and agriculture industry. Today, it has become imperative, as resources are depleted, toxins enter the food chain, farmers lose their land, and children go hungry. Sustainability is the new framework for addressing these issues, and is promoted by agriculturalists, researchers, and visionaries alike. In this important work, fifteen leading scholars of food and agriculture present a detailed description of the social, economic, and political aspects of the sustainability concept. They address many important questions surrounding these issues, including: What do we want to sustain? Who should benefit from sustainable agriculture? What types of political, economic, and social structures will facilitate the development of sustainable agriculture? Food for the Future confronts the theoretical and practical aspects of a transformation to sustainability systems--aspects that are too often overlooked due to the current emphasis on production per se. This book presents new approaches to understanding and developing sustainability, the limitations and future potential of sustainable food and agriculture systems, and ways in which we can work together from different positions to achieve sustainability. This clear and far-reaching book is must reading for scientists, policy makers, students, and all others interested in finding comprehensive solutions to today's food and agriculture crises.