Modern industrial agriculture is in crisis. In our obsession with 'efficiency' and short-term profit, we are losing all real connection with the natural world. As a result, the dream of global abundance promised by the introduction of chemical fertilisers, pesticides and hybrid seeds is becoming a nightmare of health risks, degraded land and ailing communities. The way we produce our food is destructive and quite simply unsustainable. From the Ground Up sets the decline of agriculture within the broader context of industrialisation as a whole, and explores some of the fundamental principles which underlie the 'growth-at-any-cost' thinking of modern society. At the same time, it documents the growing public distrust of conventional agricultural practices, and highlights some of the most promising alternatives leading to more sane, environmentally healthy ways of producing food. This book is a valuable reference for those concerned with the future of agriculture - in the industrialised countries as well as in the South, where agricultural development continues to be modelled on the industrial ideal. I have often wanted a short, coherent argument about the nature of industrial agriculture, and an outline of realistic alternatives to it. At last, here is such a book.