We know that more than 90 percent of U.S. farms are family owned and operated, although there is a lot of misinformation regarding farm ownership and operation among the public non-farming community. May’s selection, This Blessed Earth: A Year in the Life of an American Family Farm*+ by Ted Genoways, should be an interesting take on the perception of family farms being portrayed to the public through literature – specifically, this book dedicated to the topic.
The family farm lies at the heart of our national identity, and yet its future is in peril. Rick Hammond grew up on a farm, and for forty years he has raised cattle and crops on his wife’s fifth-generation homestead in Nebraska, in hopes of passing it on to their four children. But as the handoff nears, their family farm―and their entire way of life―are under siege on many fronts, from shifting trade policies, to encroaching pipelines, to climate change. Following the Hammonds from harvest to harvest, Ted Genoways explores the rapidly changing world of small, traditional farming operations. He creates a vivid, nuanced portrait of a radical new landscape and one family’s fight to preserve their legacy and the life they love.
Click here to order the book or download the Kindle version. Order through our link and AgBookClub gets a little somethin’-somethin’ back from Amazon to help keep this website running. 🙂
Here’s what you need to do this month:
Get the book. Buy it, borrow it, download and listen to it, read it over your neighbor’s shoulder — we don’t care. But don’t steal the book. 😉
Read the book.
- Week 1: Prologue, Part 1, Interlude (Twitter chat on 5/5)
- Week 2: Part 2, Interlude (Twitter chat on 5/12)
- Week 3: Part 3, Interlude (Twitter chat on 5/19)
- Week 4: Part 4, Interlude, Epilogue (Twitter chat on 5/26)
Join the chat (#AgBookClub) on Wednesdays at 8:00pm Central on Twitter. Learn how to participate in a Twitter chat here. While we hope you can participate in our discussion every week, we know that everyone has busy schedules. We always include general questions following the topic(s) of the book that can be answered by anyone, so please don’t hesitate to jump in the Twitter chat if you didn’t have a chance to read the section we’re discussing. We welcome any and all to join the discussion!
Happy reading!
AgBookClub 