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This book gives you all the information you need to start your own local foods business. You'll get plain-English advice from a self-proclaimed farm-girl-turned-entrepreneur on:

• Trends in niche agriculture and local foods
• Creating a business plan for a small-scale or hobby venture
• Assessing your home marketplace and uncovering niches not yet served
• Financing options, especially grants and cost-sharing programs
• Free or low-cost marketing ideas
• Basic strategies for surviving the first year in business
• And more

About the author

Sarah Beth Aubrey was born into a family of farmers and was raised to believe, like Scarlett O'Hara, that it is land that sustains after all else. In addition to operating her company, Aubrey's Natural Meats, Aubrey writes and speaks extensively on agriculture, the rural lifestyle and small farm development.

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There has never been a better time to make and sell great cheese. People worldwide are consuming more high-quality, handmade cheese than ever before. The number of artisan cheesemakers has doubled in recent years, and many of the industry's newcomers are "farmstead" producers — those who work only with the milk of their own animals. More than ever before, the people who choose to become farmer-cheesemakers need access to the knowledge of established cheese artisans who can help them build their dream.

Few career choices lead to such extremes of labor, emotion and monetary challenge. In The Farmstead Creamery Advisor, respected cheesemaker, instructor and speaker Gianaclis Caldwell walks would-be producers through the many, and often confusing, steps and decisions they will face when considering a career in this burgeoning cottage industry. This book fills the gap that exists between the pasture and cheese plate. It goes far beyond issues of caring for livestock and basic cheesemaking, explaining business issues such as:

• Analyzing your suitability for the career
• Designing and building the cheese facility
• Sizing up the market
• Negotiating day-to-day obstacles
• Ensuring maximum safety and efficiency

Drawing from her own and other cheesemakers' experiences, Caldwell brings to life the story of creating a successful cheesemaking business in a practical, organized manner. Absolutely essential for anyone interested in becoming a licensed artisan cheesemaker, The Farmstead Creamery Advisor will also appeal to the many small and hobby-farm owners who already have milking animals and who wish to improve their home dairy practices and facilities.

Recommended Product for Wiser Living: Today, more than ever before, our society is seeking ways to live more conscientiously. To help bring you the very best inspiration and information about greener, more sustainable lifestyles, MOTHER EARTH NEWS is recommending books to readers. For 40 years, MOTHER EARTH NEWS has been North America’s “Original Guide to Living Wisely,” creating books and magazines for people with a passion for self-reliance and a desire to live in harmony with nature.

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Where would you find your groceries if your supermarket's shelves were suddenly empty? The threat of earthquakes, trucker strikes, power outages or a global market collapse makes us vulnerable like never before. With spiraling fuel prices and unstable world economies, individuals and communities are demanding more control over their food supply.

Food Security for the Faint of Heart is designed to gently ease readers into a more empowered place so that shocks to our food supply can be handled confidently. As well as acquiring new skills and ideas, there are other compelling reasons to get better prepared. The local economy gains support and encouragement to expand, in turn boosting food's taste and nutritional value, along with the health of people and ecosystems. Community support helps low-income families eat higher quality food, and the preparation provides a psychological edge in an emergency.

Chapters are devoted to useful, transferable skills, including:

• Preserving garden food
• Saving freezer food during a power outage
• Managing through an earthquake
• Preparing quick herbal medicinals
• Foraging for wild food

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In a hectic world of mass-produced food, clothing, and entertainment, it’s easy to miss out on the simple pleasures of doing things for yourself. Meet Jenna Woginrich, a 26-year-old web designer who decided to take control of her life — what she ate, what she wore, and how she spent her free time. Learn a few basic country skills, she reasoned, and she would be able to produce at least some of the food and other resources she used every day. Made from Scratch tells the story of Woginrich's hilarious, heartbreaking, soul-satisfying journey, inspiring and entertaining readers who dream about a more self-sufficient lifestyle. Discover the joys of homesteading with Woginrich as she experiences the satisfaction of making bread, keeping chickens, keeping bees, sew clothing, grow vegetables and more!

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CLEARANCE ITEM. PREVIOUS RETAIL PRICE WAS $18.95. AVAILABLE ONLY WHILE SUPPLIES LAST!

Keith Stewart, already in his early forties and discontent with New York’s corporate grind, moved upstate and started a one-man organic farm in 1986. Today, having surmounted the seemingly endless challenges to succeeding as an organic farmer, Stewart employs seven to eight seasonal interns and provides 100 varieties of fresh produce to the shoppers and chefs who flock twice weekly, May to December, to his stand at Union Square Greenmarket in Manhattan — the only place where his produce is sold. It’s a Long Road to a Tomato opens a window into the world of Stewart’s Farm, with essays on his development as a farmer, the nuts and bolts of organic farming for an urban market, farm animals domestic and wild, and the political, social and environmental issues relevant to agriculture today — and their impact on all of us.

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The latest buzz is that anyone from 8 to 80 can learn and enjoy the popular hobby of beekeeping. Whether you live in an apartment with just a small balcony or you have a farm with acres of land, this book will teach you how to get started. Find out where to locate your bees, how to get them home, where and how to house them, and the methods for collecting their wax and honey. Whether you want to start a home-based beekeeping business or simply enjoy a new hobby, you'll become an expert in no time at all. Learn the history of bees and beekeeping and get the best advice available for safely collecting the honey and wax from your bees.

Recommended Product for Wiser Living: Today, more than ever before, our society is seeking ways to live more conscientiously. To help bring you the very best inspiration and information about greener, more sustainable lifestyles, MOTHER EARTH NEWS is recommending books to readers. For 40 years, MOTHER EARTH NEWS has been North America’s “Original Guide to Living Wisely,” creating books and magazines for people with a passion for self-reliance and a desire to live in harmony with nature.

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In the farm home of America’s past, the hearth of the home – the kitchen – represented the warmth and well-being of the family that met daily to enjoy hearty, homemade food and converse with pleasure. Award-winning artist Bob Artley evokes this ideal in this beautiful homage to the traditional Midwestern farm kitchen. Filled with heirloom family recipes and cozy memories and accompanied by Artley’s signature pen-and-ink drawings and full-color illustrations, this memoir provides a nostalgic and affectionate look at rural life, family and food from a simpler time.

Peppered with 28 traditional family recipes Dorothy Harchanko gathered from farm wives of the era – including entries for Apple Pie, Carrot Jam and Ice Box Cookies – the chapters provide a description of the farm kitchen; discuss the family larder, cellar and attic; and examine the many ways in which the kitchen served as the center of the farm family’s universe. Used as a medical dispensary, nursery, laundry room, scriptorium, and, of course, gathering place to eat, the kitchen of Artley’s past now gives him the space to tell his unique story in words, with food and through his excellent and unforgettable artwork.

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Novices eager to collect tasty wild mushrooms will find this unique guide invaluable. Unlike others, it focuses only on those mushrooms that are both safe to eat and delicious. Most important, this book presents the eight rules of mushroom gathering in a straightforward fashion — including "Never, never take a mushroom with gills," and "If a mushroom smells rotten, it is rotten." Among the many mushrooms covered are the cep; the red-cracked, larch, bay and birch boletes; hen of the woods, chanterelle, trumpet chanterelle, hedgehog fungus, common puffball, horn of plenty and cauliflower mushroom. Each is identified with several color photographs and identification checklist, and there's also information on mushroom season, handling, storage and cooking, complete with recipes.

Recommended Product for Wiser Living: Today, more than ever before, our society is seeking ways to live more conscientiously. To help bring you the very best inspiration and information about greener, more sustainable lifestyles, MOTHER EARTH NEWS is recommending books to readers. For 40 years, MOTHER EARTH NEWS has been North America’s “Original Guide to Living Wisely,” creating books and magazines for people with a passion for self-reliance and a desire to live in harmony with nature.

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Here’s the ideal hands-on guidebook for self-sufficient farmers, ranchers and hunters with step-by-step instructions on butchering beef, venison, pork, lamb, poultry and goats. Time-tested advice on how to cure the meat by smoking or salting helps you preserve your harvest. A final section explains how to make sausages. Numerous mouthwatering recipes are included.

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Taking its inspiration from John Seymour's best-selling classic, The Complete Book of Self-Sufficiency, Self Sufficiency for the 21st Century brings the subject up to date by showing how to live a more sustainable life that everyone can access, whether living in the city, the suburbs or the country. Sharing their experiences, tips and techniques, father-and-son team Dick and James Strawbridge show how to make the practical changes that will have a big impact on your life — without having to transform your lifestyle. Covering eco-projects, plant-by-plant and animal-by-animal identification, how to produce little or no waste and remove our dependence upon fossil fuels, and so much more, Self Sufficiency for the 21st Century includes something for everyone — from urban apartment dwellers to suburbanites to those living in the countryside.

Recommended Product for Wiser Living: Today, more than ever before, our society is seeking ways to live more conscientiously. To help bring you the very best inspiration and information about greener, more sustainable lifestyles, MOTHER EARTH NEWS is recommending books to readers. For 40 years, MOTHER EARTH NEWS has been North America’s “Original Guide to Living Wisely,” creating books and magazines for people with a passion for self-reliance and a desire to live in harmony with nature.