農業は古来続く人間の営みの一つです。伝統的な手法にせよ、最新技術を駆使したものにせよ、私たちは農業なくして生きながらえることはできません。しかし現代の生活において、田園風景で何が行われているか、食卓に並ぶ食材の出どころに思いを馳せることがどれほどあるでしょう。気候変動や、遺伝子組み換えの問題にも言及します。
　　

• Introduces readers to the vast range of global agriculture, covering both industrial and developing countries
• Considers both livestock and crop farming, and the multiple issues facing the different forms of farming
• Explains the principles of local and international agricultural markets, and how they determine what farmers produce
• Identifies the universally applicable principles of farming

Agriculture, one of the oldest human occupations, is practised all over the world, using techniques ranging from the profoundly traditional to the most scientifically advanced. Without it we would starve. Yet how many of us understand what is happening in the fields that we see as we drive through the countryside? How often do we think about the origins of the food in our trolley?

In this Very Short Introduction Paul Brassley and Richard Soffe explain what farmers do and why they do it. Beginning with the most basic resource, the soil, they show why it is important, and how farmers can increase its productivity, before turning to the plants and animals that grow on it, and tracing the connections between their biology and the various ways in which farmers work with them. The authors conclude by looking at some of the controversial issues facing contemporary agriculture: its sustainability; its impact on wildlife and landscape; issues of animal welfare; and the affect of climate change and the development of genetically modified organisms on farmers.