Tending Iowa's land Pathways to a sustainable future

Veteran chronicler of Iowa's natural history Mutel--whose previous works include The Emerald Horizon (2008), A Watershed Year (CH, Oct'10, 48-0887), and The Tallgrass Restoration Handbook (CH, Dec'97, 35-2103)--offers this edited volume about sustainability in modern agriculture. The focus of the volume is Iowa, but the message is broadly applicable. The book is organized into four parts, each with classic focus: "Soil," "Water," "Air," and "Life," (i.e., biodiversity). In each part, various contributors propose the problem and the solutions. Technical chapters are interspersed with engaging personal essays. The more this reader read, the more he liked the non-judgmental conversational approach to the material overall. Reading some of the more technical chapters could be painful because they lack the nuance academics would recognize and expect. Some inaccuracies result, making the text unsuitable for advanced students. However several chapters are outstanding: Larry Weber's chapter 8, "Water-Centered Land Management," does a particularly good job of illustrating how although political and social barriers may confound obvious solutions, framing the total cost of sustainable interventions a bit at a time makes needed action more palatable. William Gutowski's chapter 10, "Choosing a Better Future," offers a practical review of how climate changes affect agricultural practices in observable ways. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates. Students in two-year technical programs. General readers. --Mark Steven Coyne, formerly, University of Kentucky