Food from the radical center

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xii

   PDF

2. Introduction: Conservation You Can Taste

   • Gary Paul Nabhan

   Pages 1-8

3. A Land Divided

   • Gary Paul Nabhan

   Pages 9-18

4. Farming in the Radical Center

   • Gary Paul Nabhan

   Pages 19-30

5. Will Work for Dirt

   • Gary Paul Nabhan

   Pages 31-43

6. Replenishing Water and Wealth

   • Gary Paul Nabhan

   Pages 45-55

7. Bringing Back the Bison

   • Gary Paul Nabhan

   Pages 57-67

8. Teach a Community to Fish

   • Gary Paul Nabhan

   Pages 69-79

9. Plant Midwives

   • Gary Paul Nabhan

   Pages 81-90

10. Strange Birds Flock Together

    • Gary Paul Nabhan

    Pages 91-100

11. Herders of Many Cultures

    • Gary Paul Nabhan

    Pages 101-108

12. Immigrant Grains

    • Gary Paul Nabhan

    Pages 109-121

13. Urban Growers and Rare Fruits

    • Gary Paul Nabhan

    Pages 123-133

14. Return of the Pollinators

    • Gary Paul Nabhan

    Pages 135-148

15. You Can Go Home Again

    • Gary Paul Nabhan

    Pages 149-161

16. Back Matter

    Pages 163-184

    PDF

America has never felt more divided. But in the midst of all the acrimony comes one of the most promising movements in our country’s history. People of all races, faiths, and political persuasions are coming together to restore America's natural wealth: its ability to produce healthy foods.
In Food from the Radical Center, Gary Nabhan tells the stories of diverse communities who are getting their hands dirty and bringing back North America's unique fare: bison, sturgeon, camas lilies, ancient grains, turkeys, and more. These efforts have united people from the left and right, rural and urban, faith-based and science-based, in game-changing collaborations. Their successes are extraordinary by any measure, whether economic, ecological, or social. In fact, the restoration of land and rare species has provided—dollar for dollar—one of the best returns on investment of any conservation initiative.

As a leading thinker and seasoned practitioner in biocultural conservation, Nabhan offers a truly unique perspective on the movement. He draws on fifty years of work with community-based projects around the nation, from the desert Southwest to the low country of the Southeast. Yet Nabhan’s most enduring legacy may be his message of hope: a vision of a new environmentalism that is just and inclusive, allowing former adversaries to commune over delicious foods.  

• rural urban divide
• restoration
• diversity
• natural capital
• biocultural conservation
• food producing capacity
• gardening
• farmland
• fencerows
• soil health
• bison
• sturgeon
• ancient grains
• agriculture

• Tucson, USA

  Gary Paul Nabhan

Gary Paul Nabhan is an internationally celebrated nature writer, food and farming activist, and proponent of conserving the links between biodiversity and cultural diversity. He has been been honored as a pioneer and creative force in the “local food movement” and seed saving community by Utne Reader, Mother Earth News, New York Times, Bioneers, and Time magazine.As the W.K. Kellogg Endowed Chair in Sustainable Food Systems at the University of Arizona Southwest Center, he works with students, faculty and non-profits to build a more just, nutritious, sustainable, and climate-resilient foodshed spanning the U.S./Mexico border. He was among the earliest researchers to promote the use of native foods in preventing diabetes, especially in his role as a co-founder and researcher with Native Seeds/SEARCH. Gary is also personally engaged as an orchard-keeper, wild foods forager, and pollinator habitat restorationist workingfrom his small farm in Patagonia, Arizona near the Mexican border. He has helped forge “the radical center” for collaborative conservation among farmers, ranchers, indigenous peoples and environmentalists in the West. He played key roles in establishing the Ironwood Forest National Monument, community-based seed banks, land reserves for conserving wild crop relatives, and restored habitats for migratory pollinators throughout the West.
Agricultural historian Peter Hatch of Monticello has called Nabhan “the lyrical scholar of genetic diversity.” As an Arab-American essayist and poet, he is author or editor of twenty-four books, some of which have been translated into Arabic, Spanish, Italian, French, Croation, Korean, Chinese and Japanese. For his creative writing and its influence on community-based conservation, he has been honored with a MacArthur “genius” award, a Lannan Literary Fellowship, a Southwest Book Award, the John Burroughs Medal for nature writing, the VavilovMedal, and several honorary degrees and lifetime achievement awards.
He works most of the year as a research scientist at Tumamoc Hill and the Southwest Center of the University of Arizona, but he is also engaged with several food justice and farming alliances, including Sabores Sin Fronteras, Santa Cruz Valley Heritage Alliance, Wild Farm Alliance, Renewing America’s Food Traditions, and the Borderlands Habitat Restoration Initiative. Nabhan is humbled and honored to serve as a professed Ecumenical Franciscan brother, helping the Franciscan Action Network in shaping ethical responses to environmental injustice, to immigration issues, and to climate change.

Policies and ethics