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Holding Our Ground: Protecting America's Farms And Farmland
Farmers, who own or rent most of the private land in America, hold the key not only to the nation's food supply, but also to managing community growth, maintaining an attractive landscape, and protecting water and wildlife resources. While the issue of protecting farmland and open space is not new, the intensity of the challenge has increased. Farmers are harder pressed to make a living, and rural and suburban communities are struggling to accommodate increasing populations and the development that comes with them. Holding Our Ground can help landowners and communities devise and implement effective strategies for protecting farmland. The book: - discusses the reasons for protecting farmland and how to make those reasons widely known and understood
- describes the business of farming, federal government farm programs, and the role of land in farmers's decisions
- analyzes federal, state, and local farmland protection efforts and techniques
- explores a variety of land protection options including purchase of development rights; transfer of development rights; private land trusts; and financial, tax, and estate planning
- reviews the strengths and weaknesses of the farmland protection tools available
The authors describe the many challenges involved in protecting farmland and explain how to create a package of techniques that can meet those challenges. In addition, they offer appendixes with model zoning ordinances, nuisance disclaimers, conservation easements, and other documents that individuals and communities need to carry out the programs discussed. Holding Our Ground provides citizens, elected officials, planners, and landowners with a solid basis for understanding the issues behind farmland protection, and will be an invaluable resource in developing techniques and programs for achieving long-term protection goals..
Price: $23.99
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Old Fields: Dynamics and Restoration of Abandoned Farmland (The Science and Practice of Ecological Restoration Series)
Land abandonment is increasing as human influence on the globe intensifies and various ecological, social, and economic factors conspire to force the cessation of agriculture and other forms of land management. The “old fields” that result from abandonment have been the subject of much study, yet few attempts have been made to examine the larger questions raised by old field dynamics. Old Fields brings together leading experts from around the world to synthesize past and current work on old fields, providing an up-to-date perspective on the ecological dynamics of abandoned land. The book gives readers a broad understanding of why agricultural land is abandoned, the factors that determine the ecological recovery of old fields, and how this understanding contributes to theoretical and applied ecology. Twelve case studies from diverse geographical and climatic areas—including Australian rainforest, Brazilian Amazonia, New Jersey piedmont, and South African renosterveld—offer a global perspective on the causes and results of land abandonment. Concluding chapters consider the similarities and differences among the case studies, examine them in the context of ecological concepts, and discuss their relevance to the growing field of restoration ecology. Old Fields is the first book to draw together studies on old fields from both a theoretical and practical perspective. It represents an important contribution to the development of theory on old field dynamics and the practice of ecological restoration on abandoned farmland, and the broader implications of old field dynamics to ecology and restoration. .
Price: $39.97
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The Law of the Land: Two Hundred Years of American Farmland Policy
'This book provides fascinating insights into how present-day American land legislation has evolved In doing so the author identifies the many problems that the family farmer has had to face over the past two centuries at the hands of the weather, unstable product prices, and corrupt and venal politicians' - "Journal of Agricultural Economics". 'A provocative, learned, polemical contribution to the debate on the nature of the farm problem and the means to solve it. Throughout our history, Opie, a historian, convincingly argues, contradictory goals have produced contradictory policies that are the sources of our current problems' - "Science". 'This important volume offers a reinterpretation of public lands history as it relates to contemporary farm policy...[Opie's] signal contribution is to examine and evaluate the many policy strands of a twentieth-century safety net designed by Congress to sustain the family farm' - "Journal of American History".'Bright, passionate, and entirely convincing' - "Journal of Rural Studies". 'The Law of the Land has made a significant contribution to agricultural and public policy history by pointing out that American ideals have shaped policies and assigned roles that have often left farmers and farmland vulnerable' - "Public Historian". 'The five years that have passed since this book was first published have been enough to conclude that John Opie can reconstruct the past and predict the future...Many of the problems he foresaw have come to pass and some of the solutions he discussed have been adopted...Anyone interested in the basic environment will find that this volume gives a clear picture of how we got to where we are today in the use and misuse of natural resources' - "Environmental History Review".A professor of history at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, John Opie is also director of the Center for Technology Studies and founding editor of "Environmental History Review". His other publications include "Ogallala: Water for a Dry Land" (Nebraska 1993)..
Price: $5.75
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Beyond Takings and Givings: Saving Natural Areas, Farmland and Historic Landmarks with Transfer of Development Rights and Density Transfer Charges
The United States loses over four thousand acres of farmland and natural areas to development every day. Zoning is not a permanent solution. And few communities are able to use tax dollars for meaningful open space preservation. However, a growing number of communities are using a market-based preservation technique called transfer of development rights, or TDR. With TDR, the owners of land that these communities want to save, called sending areas, are compensated for voluntarily restricting their development potential. The owners of land on which communities want to allow growth, called receiving areas, are allowed additional development potential, but only when they participate in the preservation of the sending areas. "Beyond Takings and Givings" updates and expands the 1997 publication "Saved By Development", until now the most comprehensive book on TDR. "Beyond Takings and Givings" offers a progress report on most of the 112 TDR programs profiled in the 1997 book plus case studies of 30 additional programs. "Beyond Takings and Givings" provides a step-by-step guide to creating a TDR program and addresses the most commonly asked questions on this topic. What is TDR? How did TDR evolve? Where has TDR worked best? What are TDR's success factors? What are TDR's advantages and disadvantages? How does TDR compare with other implementation tools? Why doesn't everyone use TDR? And, for communities where adoption of a traditional TDR program seems doubtful, "Beyond Takings and Givings" explains density transfer charges, a tool that reduces the seemingly complex TDR mechanism to a single requirement. In addition, "Beyond Takings and Givings" places TDR within the context of the ongoing property rights debate. Some property rights advocates believe that governments should compensate for regulations that reduce but do not eliminate property value, or "partial takings." In contrast, some community rights advocates argue that compensation is inappropriate because value reductions are offset by the value increases created by government actions and regulations, often without reimbursement, or "givings." TDR offers a practical alternative to this stalemate. It recaptures a portion of the extra value created by additional development at receiving sites and uses it to offset value reductions experienced by the owners of sending area land who voluntarily restrict the development potential of their properties..
Price: $39.95
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The Taming of the Wilderness: Indiana's Transition From Indian Hunting Grounds to Hoosier Farmland: 1800 to 1875
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