Lending Library

To check out books from the NPSAS Lending Library please contact the NPSAS office by calling (701) 883-4304 or e-mail: info@npsas.org

*There will be a $5 per book shipping and handling charge.*

Title

Author & Copyright Date

Description

A Better Row to Hoe – the Economic, Environmental, and Social Impact of Sustainable Agriculture

Northwest Area Foundation, Dec. 1994

An overview of the practice of sustainable agriculture and of specific concerns are the economic, environmental and social effects of a shift to sustainable agriculture in eight Northwestern states.

Advancing Biological Farming

Gary F. Zimmer & Leilani Zimmer-Durand, 2011

As a beginning farmer with depleted soil, this book is an invaluable resource. It goes beyond the typical organic discussion and focuses on how to successfully rebuild soil on all fronts- chemically (minerals), biologically (soil life), and structurally. The information and advice on fertilizers- which ones are beneficial to soil life and which ones are harmful- is extremely helpful and hard to find elsewhere. This book also effectively switches from the big picture dow to specific details of soil quality and back again, all the while remaining very clear and easy to understand.

All Our Relations – Native Struggles for Land and Life

Winona LaDuke, 1999

A thoughtful and in-depth account of Native resistance to environmental and cultural degradation. LaDuke’s unique understanding of Native ideas and people is born from long years of experience, and her analysis is deepened with inspiring testimonies by local Native activists sharing the struggle for survival.

Alternative Agriculture

National Research Council, 1989

This book describes the increased use of new practices and other changes in agriculture since World War II and examines the role of federal policy in encouraging this evolution.

Alternative Treatments for Ruminant Animals

Paul Dettloff, 2004

Drawing on decades of veterinary practice, Dr. Paul Dettloff presents a natural, sustainable approach to ruminant health.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life

Barbara Kingsolver, 2007

A non-fiction book detailing the author’s family’s attempt to eat only locally grown food for an entire year. The book revolves around the concept of improving the family’s diet by eating only foods that her family was able to grow themselves.

Anyone Can Build A Tub-Style Mechanical Chicken Plucker. Complete Instructions for the Kimball Whizbang.

Herrick Kimball, 2005

This book is a well organized and complete how-to guide to building a Whizbang feather plucking machine.

Anyone Can Build A Whizbang Chicken Scalder

Herrick Kimball, 2005

In this book, down-home inventor Herrick Kimball, developer of the world famous Whizbang Plucker, tells you how to build you own Chicken Scalder.

Appetite For Profit: How the Food Industry Undermines Our Health and How to Fight Back

Michele Simon, 2006

Author Michele Simon explains why we cannot trust food corporations to “do the right thing”. She describes the local battles of going up against the powerful food lobbies and offers a comprehensive guide to the public relations, front groups, and lobbying tactics that food companies employ to trick the American public.

Becoming Native To This Place

Wes Jackson, 1996

Wes Jackson, a biologist by training, applies the notion of place to a rethinking of ecological and agricultural policy. His hope is that the concept of place will seep deeply into our thoughts and affect the ver we we inhabit the world.

Biological Control of Invasive Plants in the United States

E.M. Coombs, J.K. Clark, G.L. Piper, A.F. Cofrancesco, 2004

Leading experts review the discipline of biological control of invasive terrestrial and aquatic plants. Topics addressed include ecology, safety testing, non-target impacts, and the processes of identifying, introducing, distributing, and monitoring biological control agents.

Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Social Movement in History Is Restoring Grace, Justice and Beauty to the World

Paul Hawken, 2007

Hawken (Natural Capitalism) traces the formation of the environmental and social justice movement from the beginning of natural science across years and continents in this rousing and “inadvertently optimistic” call to action.

Buffalo Bird Woman’s Garden – Agriculture of the Hidatsa Indians

Gilbert L. Wilson, 1987

Anthropologist Gilbert L. Wilson transcribed the words of the Buffalo Bird Woman, whose advice today’s gardeners can still follow. She describes a year of activities, from preparing and planting the fields through cultivating, harvesting, and storing foods. She gives recipes for cooking typical Hidatsa dishes. And she tells of the stories, songs, and ceremonies that were essential to a bountiful harvest.

Building a Sustainable Business – A Guide to Developing a Business Plan For Farms and Rural Businesses

SARE, 2003

A guide to developing a business plan for farms and rural businesses brings the business planning process alive to help today’s alternative and sustainable agriculture entrepreneurs transform farm-grown inspiration to profitable enterprises.

Building Soils for Better Crops, 2nd Edition

Fred Magdoff and Harold van Es, 2000

Building Soils for Better Crops unlocks the secret of maintaining a diverse ecosystem below ground to foster healthy crops above.Ecological soil management, as detailed by the soil experts who wrote the book, can raise fertility and yields while reducing environmental impacts.

Building Soils Naturally – Innovative Methods for Organic Gardeners

Phil Nauta, 2012

Building Soils Naturally outlines proven, sustainable methods for growing healthy food and plants that contribute to a healthy planet and a healthy you.

Chicken Book

Page Smith and Charles Daniel, 2000

Liberating today’s chicken from cartoons, fast food and other demeaning associations, The Chicken Book at once celebrates and explains this noble fowl. As it traces the rise and fall of Gallus domestics from the jungles of ancient India to the assembly-line hatcheries sprawled across modern America.

Companion Plants and How to Use Them

Helen Philbrick and Richard Gregg

This book is packed with information about how plants affect each other. It also has information about how different plants or weeds are used.

The Compassionate Carnivore

Catherine Friend, 2008

As a former city dweller, Friend  has a unique and intimate perspective on the morals, economics and practicalities of raising and eating meat humanely. With low-key, Midwestern humor, she delineates the differences between certified organic, certified humane, cage free, free range and omega 3 eggs; the often-confusing nuances of organic, sustainable and conventional farming; and why, in her opinion, small farms are preferable to big ones.

Crop Rotation on Organic Farms – A Planning Mannual

NRAES, 2009

This planning manual provides an in-depth review of the applications of crop rotation, including improving soil quality and health and managing pests, diseases and weeds. Consulting with expert organic farmers, the authors share rotation strategies that can be applied under various field conditions and with a wide range of crops.

Dehydrator Delights

Noreen Thomas

Over 76 recipes that are analyzed for fat, sodium, calories and cholesterol to help maintain or improve your health goals.

Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future

Bill McKibben, 2007

In this powerful and provocative manifesto, Bill McKibben offers the biggest challenge in a generation to the prevailing view of our economy. For the first time in human history, he observes, “more” is no longer synonymous with “better” – indeed, for many of us, they have become almost opposites.

Earth Foods

Lee Fryer and Dick Simmons, 1972

Earth Foods is a book for consumers – a book about the food you eat today. It tells you about how your food has been debased-poisoned and robbed of its natural nutrition. Presented along with this are ways to put this natural nutrition back into your food.

Eat Fat, Loose Fat

Dr. Mary Enig and Sally Fallon, 2005

Based on more than two decades of research, Eat Fat, Lose Fat flouts conventional wisdom by revealing that so-called healthy vegetable oils (such as corn and soybean) are in large part responsible for our national obesity and health crisis, while the saturated fats traditionally considered “harmful” are essential to weight loss and health.

Eat Here – Reclaiming Homegrown Pleasure in a Global Supermarket

Brian Halwell, 2004

Some people may ask, “what’s wrong with getting my food from some distant land, if the food is cheap and the system works?” The point Halwell, a senior researcher at the Worldwatch Institute, makes throughout this book is that those prices are artificially low, and the system is broken.

Edaphos – Dynamics of a Natural Soil System

Paul D. Sachs

Author Paul Sachs spent sixteen years studying soil system dynamics and translated it all into a non-technical, non-boring book for anyone interested in knowing the finer details of how the soil system works.

Eliza The Pig

Alexandra McClanahan, 2015

Eliza The Pig is an animal-driven tale of life on a small farm, showcasing the importance of family, friendship and standing up for what’s right.

The End of Food

Thomas F. Pawlick, 2006

This book is based on hard scientific research, most of which has been conducted outside of the U.S., where food production lobbies have fought hard agains this kid of research. Pawlick exposes an alarming trend in the food available in our grocery stores.

Everything I Want To Do Is Illegal

Joel Salatin, 2007

Drawing upon 40 years’s experience as an ecological farmer and marketer, Joel Salatin explains with humor and passion why Americans do not have the freedom to choose the food they purchase and eat.

Fatal Harves – The Tragedy of Industrial Agriculture

Island Press

How and why has agriculture, an endeavor that for millennia involved intimate knowledge of and profound respect for nature and place, become so industrialized that it’s wreaking havoc all around the world? And what can people do about it? Editor Kimberly has assembled an eloquent group of contributors to answer these urgent questions in a book distinctive for its wealth of clarifying information and illuminating interpretations.

Festivals, Family and Food

Diana Carey and Judy Large

This family favorite is a unique, well loved source of stories, recipes, things to make, activities, poems and songs. Each festival has its own well illustrated chapter.

Food Fight – The Citizens Guide to the Next Food and Farm Bill

Daniel Imhoff, 2012

A deconstruction of the complex Farm Bill policy, with detailed analysis in a historical context.

Foodopoly

Wenonah Hauter

Foodopoly takes aim at the real culprit behind America’s food crisis: the ever-growing consolidation and corporatization of food production, which prevents farmers from raising healthy crops and limits the choices that people can make in the grocery store.

Four-Season Harvest

Eliot Coleman, 1992

Coleman’s book is a delight – an earnest guide written with an impish sense of humor. It will refresh anyone who wants to get the most from a vegetable garden yet doesn’t want to devote too much time and energy to the process.

From Land to Mouth – Understanding the Food System

Brewster Kneen, 1993

This book tells the story of the global food system which, following its own logic of distancing, provides abundance for the wealthy – while producing starvation and ecological disaster. With irony and clarity, the beliefs which hold people captive are exposed and demystified, and a vision of alternatives emerges.

From the Ground Up: Wisconsin Sustainable Farmers Tell of their Practice and Vision (1st Edition)

Collected and edited by M. Irwin, 1990

This book contains the case histories of ten Wisconsin farmers determined to face the issue. Other farmers with similar desires will find both practical idea and spiritual support in it.

From the Ground Up: Wisconsin Sustainable Farmers Tell of their Practice and Vision (2nd Edition)

Collected and edited by M. Irwin, 1992

This book contains the case histories of ten Wisconsin farmers determined to face the issue. Other farmers with similar desires will find both practical idea and spiritual support in it.

Genetic Roulette

Jeffry M. Smith, 2007

This book, prepared in with input by more than 30 scientists, is for anyone wanting to understand GM technology, to learn how to protect themselves, or to share their concerns with others.

Genetic Engineering, Food and Our Environment

Luke Anderson, 1999

This book aims to clarify some of the key issues that concern people about genetic engineering.

Grassland The History, Biology, Politics & Promise of the American Prairie

Richard Manning, 1995

Framing his book with the story of the remarkable elk, whose mysterious wanderings seem to reclaim his ancestral plains, Manning traces the expansion of America into what was then viewed as the American desert and considers our attempts over the last two hundred years to control unpredictable land through plowing, grazing, and landscaping.

Great Possessions

David Kline, 1990

Combining the foresight of John Muir, the poetry of Henry David Thoreau, and the artistry of John James Audubon, Kline blends the hues of old-world Amish farm life to  paint a canvas colored with the great horned owl, black-tailed grackle, and blue heron beneath a winter’s wolf moon.

Healthy Fats For Life

L.R. Vanderhaeghe and K. Karst, 2003

You can eat fat and be healthy! For years we have been told that “fat” is bad for us. But the low-fat and no-fat-diets designed to improve our health have instead created and overweight society with skyrocketing rates of heart disease and diabetes.

How I See It

Dr. Paul Dettloff

The playful cartoons and drawings in this book are the result of long hours of driving as a country vet in the Midwest. Dr. Paul let his mind wander as he drove many miles to care for large animals. He remembers the humorous and even the not-so-good situations he encountered in his many years of service.

IPM for Gardeners – A Guide to Integrated Pest Management

R. A. Cloyd, P.L. Nixon, N.R. Pataky, 2004

This guide sounds the trumpet, giving those gardeners hungry for information about how to improve the conditions in their gardens a sound underpinning in methods aimed at using chemicals only when deemed absolutely necessary.

Last Standing Woman

Winona LaDuke, 1997

Native American activist LaDuke, a Harvard-educated member of the Anishinaabe Nation, has given us a powerful first novel that presents the lives of seven generations of Anishinaabe (Ojibwe/Chippewa) from initial contact with whites in the 1860s to a surprisingly utopian peak in conditions early in the next century.

Living Landscapes in North Dakota: a Guide to Native Plantscaping

NRCS – US Dept of Ag

Local Food Project: A How-to Manual

Gary L. Valen, 2001

This how-to manual guides readers through the process of starting a local food project.

Make Supper Safe

Ben Hewitt

In Making Supper Safe, Ben Hewitt exposes the vulnerabilities inherent to the US food industry, where the majority of our processing facilities are inspected only once every seven years, and where government agencies lack the necessary resources to act on early warning signs. The most dangerous aspect of our food system isn’t just its potential to make us acutely ill, but the ever expanding distance between us and our sources of nourishment.

For All Generations: Making World Agriculture More Sustainable

J. Patrick Madden, 1997

Sustainable agriculture is not just a goal to be attained; it is an ongoing, dynamic process. Rather than a destination, it is a journey. At the present time, the vast majority of the world’s agriculture is non-sustainable. If this self-destructive trend is allowed to continue, future generations will suffer enormously. This book is about reversing that trend, by making world agriculture more sustainable.

Managing Cover Crops Profitably, 3rd Edition

SARE

Managing Cover Crops Profitably explores how and why cover crops work, and provides all the information needed to build cover crops into any farming operation.

Marketing Organic Grain

John Bobbe

Managing Cover Crops Profitably explores how and why cover crops work, and provides all the information needed to build cover crops into any farming operation.

Multi-Species Grazing and Leafy Spurge

USDA-ARS Team, 2002

A comprehensive, easy-to-read manual on using multi-species grazing as en effective leafy spurge management tool.

New Agritourism

Barbar Berst Adams, 2008

This title takes readers interested in their own agritourism project from the origins of agritourism today and on to gathering agritourism ideas beyond the general cookie cutter varieties that are unique and authentic to their farms.

On Good Land – the Autobiography of an Urban Farm

Michael Ableman, 1998

A jolting four-page aerial photo spread shows the urban creep of Goleta, California that encircled the 12 acre Fairview Gardens from 1954 to 1998. Albumin has managed the 103-year-old organic farm since 1981, a tenure that has been marked by the garden’s growing anomalousness.

Organic Matters

Henry Brockman, 2001

This book offers a wealth of concepts and ideas around sustainable, local agriculture, in terms that anyone could understand.

Pastured Poultry Profits

Joel Salatin

A hard core how-to book, this includes all the stories and tips, from brooding to marketing. Centered around meat chickens, it includes a section on layers and turkeys. Many would say this book started the American pastured poultry movement.

People of the Great Plains

Peter Miller

Peter Miller’s handsome volume documents a freewheeling investigation into the American heartland, a journey born of curiosity about the rugged, resilient individualists who people the region.

Pest Management at the Crossroads

Charles M. Benbrook, 1996

This book documents the benefits of Integrated Pest Management based on on data analysis and policy research. It provides some direction for reducing pesticide use and risks and strategies for promoting IPM.

Ranching Full-Time on 3 Hours A Day

Cody Holmes, 2011

Drawing from personal experience, this book provides real-world validation that holistic systems management can be used successfully for all aspects of your ranch. Learn how to make your ranch profitable while working just three hours a day.

Renewing the Countryside, North Dakota

Great Plains Institute, 2003

The stories assembled here are about real people, their accomplishments, and their visions for rural North Dakota.

Renewing The Countryside, Iowa

Shellie Orngard, Jan Joannides, Michael Bell, 2003

Renewing the CountrysideIowa honors those who have found a way to make a living in the countryside while supporting their communities and protecting the environment. Traverse these pages and meet everyday heroes and twenty-first-century pioneers who are bringing new life to small townsfrom Spirit Lake to Wapello, from Shenandoah to Decorah.

Return to Resistance – Breeding Crops to Reduce Pesticide Dependence

Raoul A. Robinson, 1996

Return to Resistance shows gardeners, farmers, and plant breeders how to use a long-neglected technique to create hardy new plant varieties that are naturally resistant to pests and disease.

Salad Bar Beef

Joel Salatin, 1995

The salad bar beef production model offers hope to rural communities, to struggling row-crop farmers, and to frustrated beef eaters who do not want to encourage desertification, air and water pollution, environmental degradation and inhumane animal treatment.

Sagebrush, Buttes and Buffalo – Williston, Dickinson and the Badlands, North Dakota

North Dakota Centennial Series, Volume Four

This book has over 200 color photographs with an easy reading text that provides an informative and entertaining mix of North Dakota history, anecdotes, tall tales and frontier stories.

Seeds of Change – The Living Treasure

Kenny Ausubel, 1994

Filmmaker, writer, and entrepreneur Ausubel has written an engaging, informative and often quite personal account of the founding and beginning years of Seeds of Change, a company that sells organically grown seeds to gardeners.

Seeds of Deception – Genetically Engineered Foods
Currently Checked Out

Jeffrey M. Smith, 2003

Worldwide industry manipulation and political collusion, rather than sound science, have brought genetically engineered food into our daily diet. Seeds of Deception reveals that company research is rigged, alarming evidence of health dangers is covered up, and that political and corporate bullying form the seedy background to the spread of GM crops.

Seeds of Doubt – North American Farmers’ Experience of GM Crops
Currently Checked Out

Soil Association Organic Standard

This book explains that GM food crops are far from a success story. It claims widespread GE contamination has severely disrupted GM-free production, destroyed trade and undermined the competitiveness of North American agriculture overall. The report draws on interviews with farmers about their experiences of GM soya, maize and oilseed rape, and reviews some of the independent research.

Soil, Food and People Conference: A Bio-intensive Model for the Next Century

Ecology Action of U of CA, 2000

This book is the transcribed text from the Soil, Food and People Conference: A Biointensive Model for the Next Century, which took place in March 2000, at the University of California Davis.

Steel in the Field – A Farmers’ Guide to Weed Management and Tools
Currently Checked Out

Sustainable Ag Network, 1997

Steel in the Field shows how today’s implements and techniques can control weeds while reducing—or eliminating—herbicides. In practical language, Steel in the Field presents what farmers and researchers have learned in the last 20 years about cutting weed-control costs through improved cultivation tools, cover crops and new cropping rotations.

Stockmanship – A powerful tool for grazing lands management

Steve Cote

Includes principles, techniques and tips for handling large herds through even complex grazing plans.

Talking Chicken

Kelly Klober, 2011

A 395-gape compendium of practical information, advice, tips, tricks and techniques on raising chickens and producing eggs for commercial success, whether operating as a family farm or a do-it-yourself hobbyist.

The New American Farmer, 2nd Edition

SARE, 2005

Hailing from small vegetable farms, cattle ranches and grain farms covering thousands of acres, the producers in The New American Farmer, 2nd edition have embraced new sustainable approaches to agriculture. They are renewing profits, enhancing environmental stewardship and improving the lives of their families as well as their communities.

The New Farmers Market

V. Corum, M. Rosenzweig & E. Gibson, 2001

The book covers selling at a farmers’ market, offering advice on choosing crops and products, keeping records, staffing a booth, setting prices, setting up displays and merchandise, and much more.

The Orchard Almanac – A Seasonal Guide to Healthy Fruit Trees

Steve Page and Joe Smillie, 1995

A month-by-month guide to the care of trees. Each month focuses on the overall care of the trees and what things to be on the lookout for.

The Soil of Soil- A Guide to Ecological Soil Management, 2nd Edition

G. Gershing & J. Smillie, 1986

This book is about preparing the soil to produce the best, most nutritious food.

The Winona LaDuke Reader – A Collection of Essential Writings

Winona LaDuke

LaDuke is a well-known advocate of Native American rights and environmental and women’s issues. The pieces gathered here include 38 essays, one short story, and three poems, arranged in sections about Native environmentalism, Native traditions, women’s issues, politics, and fiction and poetry.

Time, Soil and Children – Conversations With the Second Generation of Sustainable Farm Families in Minnesota

Beth E. Waterhouse, 2004

The author interviewed fifteen young people, all second generation to those Minnesota farm families who made the shift from conventional practices to sustainable farming in the 1970s and 1980s.

Westhope: Life as a Former Farm Boy

Dean Hulse, 2009

Westhope poetically conveys Hulse’s lamentations for the people, cultures, and landscapes of rural North Dakota, but is nevertheless optimistic in its outlook; as an activist, Hulse now strives to train the essence of small-town life and to create new economic models that can revitalize and sustain it.

What Really Happens When You Cut Chemicals
Currently Checked Out

C. Shirly and staff of The New Farm, 1993

This book examines data from research studies comparing high and low-input cropping systems, to help farmers reduce the use of chemicals. Also offers suggestions on what chemicals to reduce and how to begin.

Where’s the Food?

Lindsey and Teri Williams, 1987

Read firsthand testimonials from farmers across America who have had their farms confiscated by terrorist tactics. Learn from farmers what dangerous chemicals have done to their soil. Hear solid solutions for both farmers and city folks.

Women and Sustainable Agriculture

Anna Anderson, 2004

This book looks deeply into the American food system and closely examines the need for change in the way food is grown and distributed in the United States. It is composed of twelve interviews with dynamic women who work on issues surrounding modern agriculture.

Zero Tillage – Advancing the Art
Currently Checked Out

Zero Tillage Farmer’s Assoc., 1997