The Center for Agricultural Partnerships draws on a wide range of ideas, approaches, disciplines, and literature to create and conduct its programs. Many of these resources are outside the typical scope of work for people in agriculture. Listed below are publications and links from management, marketing, organizational theory, and policy that are thought-provoking and have provided valuable insights for our work in agriculture and the environment.

 

Publications on Food Security

Food Security in the United States, A Briefing Room Report from the Economic Research Service of the US Department of Agriculture, 2011.
http://www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/FoodSecurity/

Food Security, Nutrition and
Sustainability

by Geoffrey Lawrence, Kristen Lyons and Tabatha Wallington, 2011.

Climate Change and Food Security: Adapting Agriculture to a Warmer World (Advances in Global Change Research)
by David B. Lobell and Marshall Burke (Dec 18, 2009).

Publications

Poke the Box
by Seth Grodin, 2011.

Purple Cow, New Edition: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable
by Seth Grodin, 2009.

Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions
by Guy Kawasaki (2011).

Diffusion of Innovations (4th edition)
by Everett M. Rogers. The Free Press, 1995.
In our opinion the book on innovation and the most comprehensive book on the subject.

The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
by Malcolm Gladwell. Little, Brown, 2000.
A very coherent view of why some ideas spread and what can be done to help them.

First Things First
by Stephen R. Covey. Fireside/Simon & Schuster, 1994
For people who are always too busy to get anything done.

The Change Agent's Guide (2nd edition)
by Ronald G. Havelock. Educational Technology Publications, 1995.
A manual to stimulate thought for people who run projects.

Mail and Telephone Surveys: The Total Design Method
by Don A. Dillman. John Wiley, 1978.
The authoritative work on surveys.

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
by Thomas A. Kuhn. University of Chicago, 1970.
Still the most insightful book on the nature of public ideas and science.

The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It
by Michael E. Gerber. Harper 1995.
A plan for going beyond the limitations of being highly competent.

The Change Monster: The Forces That Fuel or Foil Corporate Transformation and Change
by Jeanie Daniel Duck. Crown Business,2001.
Why a new organizational chart, work plan or Request for Proposals doesn't change very much.

No More Teams: Mastering the Dynamics of Creative Collaboration
by Michael Schrage. Doubleday, 1989.
"At a job interview, a friend was asked if he was a team player. Yes," he replied, "team captain." p. xi.

 

Interesting Links

Composting Manure Projects at Risk (2011)
Updating existing law to accommodate creative solutions in agricultural community has proven to be a necessity in helping rural areas meet the deadline for implementing plans to limit nutrient pollution in nearby waterways. http://articles.lancasteronline.com/local/4/388611

The Future of Food Conference (2011)
With a forward looking keynote by His Royal Highness Prince Charles of Great Britain, the conference focused on food security, sustainable food production, and other relevant issues over four days in Washington, D.C. Special Section, The Washington Post, May 10, 2011. http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/the-future-of-food-is-now/2011/05/05/AFIBZziG_story.html

Important Global Effort Launched
On May 5, 2011, the Prince of Wales spoke at the Future of Food conference yesterday in Washington DC. The speech lays out a coherent argument for understanding the underlying causes of the food crises as being the result of flawed public policies that subsidize unsustainable production systems and don't have mechanisms to cost their externalities (from global warming gases to water pollution). This means, he demonstrates, that sustainable production is not competing on the same playing field, and the system as a whole is significantly degrading environmental capital at local and global scales. Furthermore it embraces and deploys the concept of resilience and interweaves social justice concerns. He both makes the case for the economic restructuring while also integrating everything from cultural diversity, to health, to valuing other living beings. His concern right now, clearly, is to move the kind of experimentation that he, we, and many of our partners have been doing the last decades at farm and community scales into something that can go mainstream. http://www.princeofwales.gov.uk/speechesandarticles/index.html

Healthy Chicken
Study finds less salmonella, antibiotic resistance in organic chicken: PDF

Global AgroEcology
UN report on Global Agroecology Movement describes the move by farmers in developing countries to ecological agriculture which could double food production within a decade.
Available at:
www.srfood.org/index.php/en/component/content/article/1-latest-news/1174-report-agroecology-and-the-right-to-food

Positive Deviant
by David Dorsey. Fast Company, December 2000. www.fastcompany.com/online/41/sternin.html
A great article on creating change.
"The traditional model for social and organizational change doesn't work ," says Sternin, 62. "It never has. You can't bring permanent solutions in from outside." Maybe the problem is with the whole model for how change can actually happen. Maybe the problem is that you can't import change from the outside in. Instead, you have to find small, successful but "deviant" practices that are already working in the organization and amplify them. Maybe, just maybe, the answer is already alive in the organization -- and change comes when you find it."

Food and Agricultural Policy:
Taking Stock in the New Century.
USDA 2001.
A clear and informative, if somewhat under-appreciated, report on farm policy.
Available at:
www.usda.gov/news/pubs/farmpolicy01/fpindex.htm
http://epa.gov/oppbppd1/patnerships/
www.sustainable.doe.gov/database/1122.html