Backyard gardens flush with cucumbers, tomatoes, and
peppers where bees buzz and chickens scratch. Beyond, a forest filled
with blackberries and jewelweed. Inspired by childhood memories of his
grandmother’s overflowing backyard garden, author Andrew Flachs has
embarked on a multi-continent, decades-long look at agriculture and its
value.
The dominant view of agriculture has focused only on what
we produce. It sees value in terms of capital gains or yield efficiency,
masking how our global food system produces tremendous amounts of food
commodities while failing to feed people, support rural communities, or
enhance ecological well-being. Feeding the World as if People Mattered: How Small Farms Produce Value Beyond Yields (University of Arizona Press, 2026) asks us to look more deeply and more humanely at what we perceive to be most valuable in our agricultural systems.
This
book draws on fifteen years of anthropological research, taking readers
to fields in South India, Eastern Europe, and North America, where
people are already feeding the future amid global change. From these
fields, Flachs shows us how a radical rethinking of the value of small
farms and farmers is already happening. Bringing together conversations
in agriculture, economics, anthropology, and the environmental
humanities, Flachs deftly shows how small farms reproduce social and
ecological relationships that are the only sustainable path forward.
For
anyone who is curious about the food on their plate and the people who
helped to get it there, Feeding the World as if People Mattered will
offer a new way to find value in the food we grow and the people who
grow it.
Dr. Andrew Flachs researches food and
agriculture systems, exploring genetically modified crops, heirloom
seeds, and our own microbiomes. Born and raised in rural Pennsylvania,
he graduated from Oberlin College with dual Bachelor of Music and
Bachelor of Arts degrees in 2010. He earned his PhD from Washington
University in St. Louis in April 2016 and was a 2016-2017 Volkswagen
Exchange Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the Heidelberg University
Karl Jaspers Centre for Advanced Transcultural Studies. He is currently
an associate professor of anthropology at Purdue University. His work
among farmers in North America, the Balkans, and South India
investigates ecological knowledge and technological change in
agricultural systems spanning Cleveland urban gardens and Indian GM
cotton fields. His research has been supported by public and private
institutions including the Department of Education, the National
Geographic Society, the American Institute of Indian Studies, and the
Social Science Research Council, while his writing on agricultural
development has been featured in numerous peer-reviewed publications as
well as public venues including Sapiens, Salon, and the National
Geographic magazine. His work has been recognized by eight
international awards, including most recently as a finalist for the
Society for Economic Anthropology Kate Browne Creativity in Research
Award and the International Convention of Asia Scholars’ Book Prize.
Sandra
Elizabeth is a graduate student enrolled at the Department of Sociology
in Shiv Nadar University, Delhi- NCR. She looks at rice farmers’ and
their way of life in Kuttanad, Kerala—which is dubbed as the state’s
rice granary. She can be reached out on X.
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