LGPX Andruss, Van, Christopher Plant, Judith Plant & Eleanor Wright, eds. Home! A Bioregional Reader (Santa Cruz, CA: New Society, 1990) Articles, stories and poems of over forty writers on bioregionalism as a political philosophy and practice of “living in place”. Mostly very North American, and by the kind of people who give courses at Schumacher College. Short extract from Mollison’s Permaculture Two, and a longer one from the big Permaculture book.

LGPX Attenborough, David, The Living Planet: A Portrait of the Earth (London: Collins and BBC, 1984) This is very much about our wonderful world, but with a warning at the end about Mankind’s failure to accept his responsibility to manage his use of the resources of the world (p.307).

LGPX Cock, Jacklyn & Eddie Koch, eds., Going Green: People, Politics and the Environment in South Africa (Oxford: OUP, 1991) Written at a very optimistic point in South Africa’s history, when hopes for greater social equality was thought to coincide with a surge of interest in the environment. Fulfilled? Identifies a link between poverty and toxic waste dumping.

LGPX Davidson, Max, Basic Vegetable Gardening: A Complete Guide to Successful Growing (London: Marshall Cavendish, 1977) Conventional methods, digging in farmland manure, chemical fertilisers and pest and disease treatments.

LGPX Dinkele, Geoff, Stephen Cotterell & Ian Thorn, Farming: Harraps Course in Reformed Geography (London: Harrap, 1876) Innovative geography course for children with lots of information, diagrams and exercises.

LGPX Fellows, Peter & Ann Hampton, Small-Scale Food Processing: A Guide to Appropriate Equipment (London: Intermediate Technology, 1992) Science, methods and equipment of food preservation and creation of new foods such as pickles. Very thorough.

LGPX Franck, Gertrud, Companion Planting: Successful Growing the Organic Way, trans. by Transcript (London: HarperCollins, 1983) ‘A detailed guide to organic gardening, including sheet composting techniques nad making the most of beneficial plants.’

LGPX Fukuoka, Masanobu, The Natural Way of Farming: The Theory and Practice of Green Philosophy (Tokyo: Japan, 1985) ‘Do-nothing farming: how to raise crops with no cultivation, no chemical fertilizers or herbicides, not even any added compost. (He does spread straw, irrigate, and scatter chicken pellets if available.) Philosophy based on the relatedness of human society and nature, and ‘culture is agriculture.’ Dismisses organic farming as ‘just another type of scientific farming’, and says many of its efforts to protect the natural ecology are destructive. Human civilization and misguided methods of crop cultivation have caused drying out of land and loss of vegetation worldwide, as has overgrazing by large animal herds. Natural farming is first step towards restoration of nature. Rain ‘issues forth from the ground’ unless vegetation has disappeared. ‘[I]n nature there is no cause and effect.’

LGPX Gear, Alan, Chief Executive (taken as editor), Growing Organically: The Work of the henry Doubleday Research Association ([n.p.], [1986?]) This is a brochure, with the history, gardens, projects etc. and lovely photos. Founder, Lawrence Hills named the association he founded in 1958 after Henry Doubleday, who was a 19C Quaker smallholder who introduced comfrey into Britain.

LGPX Godwin, Fay, Our Forbidden Land (London: Jonathan Cape, 1990) Author was President of the Ramblers Association from 1987 – 1990; this is a book of her photographs – some beautiful or poignant, others disturbing or ugly, some ironic or strange – of ‘the land we are no longer free to roam’.

LGPX Goudie, Andrew, The Human Impact on the Natural Environment, Third Edition (Oxford: Blackwell, 1990) The most important book on this subject, extremely thorough and scholarly. Author is/was Professor of Geography at Oxford. One of his sources is W.L.Thomas et al. on the 1955 Symposium. Conclusion begins with ‘The power of non-industrial and pre-industrial societies’, including the crucial observation on ‘anthropogenic fire climaxes’ (p.322).

LGPX Hollis, Sarah, The Country Diary Herbal (London: Bloomsbury, 1990) Charmingly presented and illustrated, with history, A-Z and herb garden designs.

LGPX Holmgren, David, Permaculture: Principles & Pathways Beyond Sustainability ( Hepburn, Victoria, Australia: Holmgren Design Services, 2002) Back cover blurb says the book builds on the permaculture concept ‘to provide a more cerebral and controversial contribution to the sustainability debate’. The Foreword says that permaculture is about ‘values and visions, and designs and systems of management...’ and the Purpose of this Book section says it is ‘much more than a form of organic gardening’ – so it’s anything but gardening?

LGPX Mollison, Bill & David Holmgren, Permaculture One: A Perennial Agriculture for Human Settlements (Tyalgum, NSW, Australia, 1990 (1978)) Begins by defining permaculture as an ‘evolving system of perennial or self-perpetuating plant and animal species useful to man ... [which] is, in essence, a complete agricultural ecosystem’ (p.1). For someone interested in permaculture as a land use revolution, this is Mollison’s best book, and the movement has been treading water for 30 years. There is a sub-section on ‘Yields’ and productivity.

LGPX Mollison, Bill, Introduction to Permaculture (Tyalgum, NSW: Tagari, 1991) In his Preface Mollison says that ‘combining architecture with biology, agriculture with forestry, and forestry with animal husbandry’ offended specialists. He says he saw permaculture in the 1970s as an assembly of plants and animals for self-reliance, but that it had become ‘a whole human system’. That is the problem, because it allows people to duck addressing their alienation from the land – and, I think, from what Marx called their ‘species being’. Then in the Introduction he says permaculture is also ‘permanent culture’. Thus permaculture became a concept rather than a practice.

LGPX Mollison, Bill, Permaculture Two: Practical Design for Town and Country in Permanent Agriculture (Stanley, Tasmania: Tagari, 1979) The main focus is on ‘design’, less on the specifics; is that why the drift away from the agricultural revolution, as such, occurred?

LGPX Mollison, Bill, Permaculture: A Practical Guide for a Sustainable Future (Washington D.C.: Island Press, 1990) This is a ‘big book’, like Patrick Whitefield’s Earth Care Manual, and one doesn’t read big books from cover to cover. I constantly quote Mollison’s aims set out on p. 7, and intend to study the book properly some day.

LGPX Myers, Norman, The Gaia Atlas of Planet Management (London: Gaia Books, 1994) Revised edition of 1985 publication. More serious source that it appears from its elaborate illustrations and diagrams.

LGPX Paxton, Angela, The Food Miles Report: The Dangers of Long Distance Food Transport (London: S.A.F.E. (Sustainable Agriculture, Food and Environment) Alliance, 1994) Food and transport, increasing distances, and wider social and ecological implications. The concerns – little different from now, in 2008 – with 10 case studies and recommendations.

LGPX Richardson, Rosamond, Food from Green Places: Vegetarian Recipes from Garden and Hedgerow (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1997) Varied vegetable ingredients, also dairy products and eggs. Simple methods. Lovely photos, of produce and some dishes.

LGPX Rowling, Nick, Commodities: How the World was Taken to Market (London: Free Association Books, 1987) Written in conjunction with a Channel 4 TV series, and using many of its illustrations, this is a radical text on ‘how present-day patterns of global power have been established by forcing people to produce commodities (sugar, tea and coffee) for a mass market.’ A chapter entitled ‘Commodity Capitalism Today’ begins: ‘Almost everything in the present world system is potentially a commodity’ (p.155). A Marxist text then? There are three entries in the index against Marx: on the first page of the Introduction on the commodity being a queer thing (p.7), and in its last page on man’s “alienation from his species being” (p.21) and near the end on how Marx’s solution whereby ‘the crisis of capitalism’ would enable the proletariat to seize power, but that capitalism is able to deflect the class struggle (p,175).

LGPX Seymour, John, The Complete Book of Self-Sufficiency (London: Corgi, 1978) Very comprehensive coverage of DIY living, and daunting, but Foreword by Schumacher suggests one learns and picks and chooses. Seymour says this is going forward to a better life, and acceptance of responsibility. Requires a correct attitude to the land.

LGPX Singer, André, Battle for the Planet (London: Pan, 1987) Based on Channel 4 series. Chapters on Earth (long section on erosion), Air, Water, Forests, Wildlife, People, Food, Shelter and Arms, with Foreword by Porritt and Conclusion by Brundtland. Great, i.e. useful, pictures.

LGPX Slater, Frances, ed., People and Environments: Issues and Enquiries (London: Collins Educational, 1986) Very though Geography textbook with themed set of case studies from developed and developing world. Part II: Power, Policies and Food Production most interesting, including No. 5 is on ‘Food supplies, agricultural production and land reform: the case of Peru’, 6 on overproduction in US, 7 on Mexico, 8 on CAP, 9 on China and self-sufficiency?

LGPX Trow-Smith, Robert, Farming Through the Ages, in Pictures (Ipswich: Farming Press, 1993 (1978)) History of arable and livestock farming in Britain from 4000BC to inter-war years.

LGPX Vaughan, J.G. & C. A. Geissler, The New Oxford Book of Food Plants (Oxford: OUP, 1997) Foreword by David Bellamy re failure of fertilizer to increase yields of grains since 1990, loss of cultivars and wild ancestors. Starting point for PFAF database? Introduction to domestication of food plants. Section on nutrition and health. [Entry in earlier index: merge?]

LGPX Whitefield, Patrick, How to Make a Forest Garden (Clanfield, Hampshire: Permanent, 1988) Has Foreword by the late Robert Hart and pictures of his pioneering forest garden, which was lost. No entry for ‘yields’ in index, my perennial bugbear.

LGPX Whitefield, Patrick, The Earth Care Manual: A Permaculture Handbook For Britain and Other Temperate Climates (East Meon, Hampshire: Permanent, 2004) A much needed complement to Bill Mollison’s Permaculture manual, full of practical wisdom, deserving to be life-changing for its readers. When this book came out, copies were available at a permaculture convergence, and some people were saying that it is too big and too expensive, and those people bought the author’s earlier book, Permaculture in a Nutshell. There is no entry in the index for ‘yields’, which is my permaculture bugbear: too much focus on ‘design’ and initial implementation, nothing really on evaluation of outcomes.