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Humanure: waste or resource? Joseph Jenkins answers this question in this guide to reclaiming and recycling human waste through composting. Offers simple and practical solutions anyone can use.

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 its 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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Instead of trying to find time to workout at the local gym, this book tells how you can get a healthful workout while silently mowing your property using a scythe.

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 its readers. For more than 30 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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CLEARANCE ITEM. PREVIOUS RETAIL PRICE WAS $29.95 AVAILABLE ONLY WHILE SUPPLIES LAST!

Featuring profiles from more than 20 states and illustrated with more than 200 color photographs, this 163 page book offers a compelling view of a future where farms and ranches are integrated into regional networks of protected wild lands.

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If you are interested in reforming America’s food system, we highly recommend this new Guide. Informed input from concerned citizens is the only thing that will counter the powerful vested interests and bring us a fresh food/farm policy that serves public health, job creation, land stewardship and even national security.

Every five years, the U.S. Congress passes complex legislation called the Farm Bill. Primarily accountable for setting the budgets and work plans for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Farm Bill is the essential economic and policy engine that drives our food and farming system and provides nutritional assistance to tens of millions of Americans—many of them children. In recent years, more and more citizens are realizing just how much is at stake in this political chess game.

Originally published in 2007, Food Fight is Daniel Imhoff's highly acclaimed primer on the complex issues contained within the Farm Bill. Now in a newly updated and expanded edition, Imhoff looks ahead at this important issue, as the debate for 2012 is already underway. With the legislation due to be reauthorized in late 2012, Food Fight offers a critical resource that can help concerned citizens deconstruct this challenging bill, organize in their communities and press their elected representatives to serve the public good, rather than vested interests.

The Guide explains:

• The Farm Bill’s connection to the national obesity epidemic…
• The problems with subsidizing the expansion of corn-based ethanol…
• The myths of “cheap food”…
• Who wins and who loses from heavily subsidized industrial ag systems.

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Whether you're beginning a new enterprise or changing from a more conventional livestock feeding and management system, this 348 page book offers complete information on running a profitable, environmentally sustainable farm based on grass feeding.

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Chicken coops come in all sizes and styles to meet the needs of every chicken family. Start a great DIY project, and build a chicken coop with these how-to drawings and conceptual plans for 45 different designs — from strictly practical to flights of fancy — guaranteed to meet the needs of every chicken owner. A 16-page color section shows detailed photos of many of the featured coops.

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The romance of the farm calls to all of us at some point in our lives. For some, the appeal lies in the promise of a simpler lifestyle marked by honest work and results you can hold in your hands. For others, the farm is a lineage to our past. It conjures images of dewy meadows, Mason jars, ripe tomatoes and the pure companionship of a trusted horse or dog.

Usually, our dreams of going back to the farm remain dreams. But in growing numbers, today's enterprising city-dwellers are finding ways to make it happen. Whether your dream farm is just a few acres with a big garden and a rabbit hutch or an 80-acre tract with a horse corral and big red barn, John Deere's Hobby Farm is just the guide you need to get started on your adventure. With full-color photos and step-by-step projects it will give structure to your dream and take you one big step closer to achieving the real thing.

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Here is a holistic approach to small-area farming that will show you how to produce 85 percent of an average family's food on just one-quarter acre — and earn $10,000 in cash annually. This is not back-to-the-land utopianism, but a tested and pragmatic method that can be applied in small lots in rural, suburban and even urban areas. Even if you have never been a farmer or a gardener, Brett Markham's advice will teach you what you need to know:

• Saving, buying, starting, and selecting seeds
• Maintaining and improving soil
• Preventing and eradicating pests and diseases
• Compost, crop rotation, and timing
• Using organic methods
• Garden planning to meet dietary requirements
• Raising poultry
• Raising and pruning fruits and nuts
• Canning, freezing, and dehydrating
• Selling your excess produce for top dollar
• And more!

More than just a how-to guide for self-sufficiency, Mini Farming teaches you the underlying principles of mini-farming so you will have the knowledge to make your own unique applications. Materials, tools and techniques are detailed with over a hundred photographs, tables, diagrams and illustrations.