The Conquest of Bread: 150 Years of Agribusiness in California

by Richard A. Walker

Overview

For over a century, California has been the world's most advanced agricultural zone, an agrarian juggernaut that not only outproduces every state in America, but also most countries. California's success, however, has come at significant costs. Never a family-farm region like the Midwest, California's landscape and Mediterranean climate have been manipulated and exploited to serve modern business interests. Home to gargantuan accomplishments such as the world's largest water storage and transfer network, California also relies on an army of Mexican farm laborers who live and work under dismal conditions.

In The Conquest of Bread, acclaimed historian Richard A. Walker offers a wide-angle overview of the agro-industrial system of production in California from farm to table. He lays bare the long evolution of each link in the food chain, showing how a persistent emphasis on productivity and growth allowed California to outpace agriculture elsewhere in the United States. Full of thunder and surprises, The Conquest of Bread allows the reader to weigh the claims of both boosters and critics in the debate over the most extraordinary agricultural profusion in the modern world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781565848771
Publisher:	New Press, The
Publication date:	10/14/2004
Pages:	382
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 7.88(h) x (d)

About the Author

Richard A. Walker is professor emeritus and former chair of geography at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of The Country in the City and The Conquest of Bread (The New Press) and a co-author, with Michael Storper, of The Capitalist Imperative and, with Andrew Sayer, of The New Social Economy. He lives in Berkeley, California.

Table of Contents

	Illustration Credits	vii
	Preface	ix
	Introduction: Unlocking the Secrets of Agribusiness	1
1.	Cornucopia	19
	All the World's a State Fair	22
	Wheat Shall Overcome	27
	Golden Waves of Gain	40
2.	A Landscape of Commodities	48
	A Profusion of Produce	49
	Back to the Land	59
	Amber Waves of Labor	66
3.	Enter the Grower	76
	Origins and Outlook	77
	Scale and Scope	86
	Modern Farm Management	92
	Farmers' Keepers	98
4.	Down on the Farm	105
	First the Stock	108
	Groundworks	118
	Waterbugs	125
	Labor Pains	131
5.	Industrial Agriculture	147
	Root and Branch	152
	The Machine in the Garden	164
	Pumping Up Production	171
	Petrofarming and Fertilizer	181
	Away with All Pests	185
	A Chicken-and-Egg Story	193
6.	The Harvest of Agribusiness	202
	Factors in the Fields	204
	Sunshine in a Can	215
	Heading Down the Aisle	228
	Fruit Cocktail	238
	California Cuisine	248
7.	Capital in the Countryside	256
	Capital Flows over the Land	257
	Making Class	266
	Wobbly Dreams	280
	Conclusion: The Conquest of Bread	300
	Notes	307
	Bibliography	341
	Index	367