A simple book, and one that stimulated much other work - in some ways a path-making publication for animal scientists and livestock production experts

Foreword It was agriculture that enabled human beings to become producers rather than hunters and gatherers, and in doing so to settle into communities. From these earliest settlements have developed the elaborate and complex societies of today. During all these millennia, we have tended to take agriculture for granted. This is unfortunate, and unfair by all those - farm men and women in the fields, scientists in their laboratories, and policy makers in parliaments and ...

From earliest origins in Scotland, influenced by early USA development, the history of agricultural education is use to introduce the influences on Australian agricultural education through the system in the most developed State of Victoria from the 1800s to the late 1990s. The creation of the new Institute of Melbourne School of Land and Environment on 1 July 1997 represents a landmark in the history of agricultural, food, forestry, horticulture and natural resource...

Total consumption of milk in developing regions is projected to increase from 164 million metric tonnes in 1993 to 391 million metric tons by the year 2020 – a 138 percent increase! The expected increase in per capita consumption is from 38 to 62 kg/person. The triple effects of population increase, income growth and urbanisation will fuel this tremendous growth in demand. Milk provides quality protein and essential micronutrients needed for nutrient balance in margin...

A Lecture by Buddhadasa Bhikkhu to Agricultural Teachers and Officials on 25 March 1991 at Suan Mokkhapharam, Chaiya, Surat Thani Province, Thailand. ธรรมบรรยายแก่คณะครูบาอาจารย์ 25 มีนาคม 2534 สวนโมกขพลาราม ไชยา จ.สุราษฏร์ธานี Translated by Prof. Lindsay Falvey, Chair of Agriculture, University of Melbourne, Australia Transcribed from tape by Lerchat Boonek, Kasetsart University, Bangkok, Thailand. The Thai text is the most precise rendition of Than Buddhadasa Bhi...

Described as ‘unique and a great service to understanding’, this book is intended for three groups; Western Buddhists, that bulk of the West that have no religious affiliation yet know there is something more to life, and Buddhists in Asia who follow the encounter of the dharma with the West. It highlights the pervasive similarities in the teachings of Jesus and the Buddha as they were probably originally presented. In its six chapters and appendix, it compares the ...

From hunters and gatherers through agro-cities, State-religious Empires infiltrated by migrating Tai persons with a wet glutinous rice technology, evolved to produce a sustainable agriculture. Rice culture determined administrative structures in a pragmatic society which regularly produced a saleable surplus. Ayutthaya’s ascendancy, continuing today, consolidated the importance of rice agriculture to national security and economic well-being, as Chinese and European infl...

Thai agriculture is traced through prehistory, agro-cities, and religious empires with immigrant Tai, to a sustainable wet glutinous rice culture which shaped institutions for an exporting society. Agriculture's provision of security and wealth increased with population and Chinese and European agribusiness, until accessible land was expended. Employment, crisis resilience, self-sufficiency, rural social support, and culture were maintained through agriculture, although ...

This book introduces Buddhism by describing its approach to spiritual development and those who undertake the Buddhist path. It aims to make Buddhism more easily understood by those who might be unfamiliar with its objectives – and this task is made easier by the pragmatic ways in which Buddhism meets our enduring urge for happiness. Among the various spiritual traditions that have been developed over the past three thousand years to relieve humans of their suffering and...

Sustainability of the environment implies both wishful thinking and ignorance – ignorance of the reality that natural systems are complex and unfathomable by scientists, and that repetition of research outputs depend on repetition of initial and all subsequent conditions. Scientific insights provide knowledge, but it is partial in most cases, and when applied is often subject to conflicting objectives, which in turn produce conditions that affect outcomes - thus our best...

Religion is a powerful expression of culture that is most obviously expressed in our relationships with nature. As our major meeting point with nature is food, this provides a fertile field for cultivating the wisdom that Professor Falvey concludes is the essence of all sustainability. By bringing sustainability, agriculture, global issues, Buddhism, Christianity and a host of other factors into play, we see that our motivations belie our rhetoric – in environmental acti...

This is the story of Lazuli, an average man with ordinary problems which, in his case, were enough to open his mind to something wonderful. Something that was already right in front of his nose – a mountain in the middle of his city that was virtually ignored. Improbable? Possibly, but then the events that follow somehow seem as natural and important as anything could be. And the story is simple, based on climbing a mountain and coming down again. But while access to the...

Ecclesiastes, the Greek name for the Hebrew book of !"#$&%# that is transliterated as Qoheleth, forms part of the wisdom literature of the Talmud and the Old Testament. Meaning something like ‘to gather’, it also evokes ‘anthology’, like a gathering of flowers, although it actually meant a religious gathering as in the Greek !""#$%&'. Across the ages its similarity to Buddhist notions has been noted, which leads to this rendering of Ecclesiastes in rhyming couplets based...

Dharma as Man is an ancient story read each evening by an old man to his young son as they sit on a veranda in rural India. They read of a wise man, of the myths that grew up about him according to customs of storytellers of that era. They trace his attempts to relate his journey of personal development to live within the rhythm of the cosmos. It is a universal tale condensed to combine the world’s stories, which renders Jesus life into Buddhist concepts in an ancient In...

Buddhist - Christian Dialogue The Parliament of the World’s Religions, December 2-9, Melbourne, Australia Sunday, December 6, 2009, 11:30am–1:00pm The program of the Parliament paraphrased this workshop in such words as those below. Its four papers stimulated much interest and flowed together in a productive manner that elicited a lively interaction. For that reason, the essence of these papers has been reproduced here for wider appreciation. The program inc...

Beginning in 1971 with research conducted in the Northern Territory of Australia, the book presents an integrated story through research conducted in the northern highlands of Thailand and much of the developing world, with an emphasis on Asia. With the benefit of 40 years hindsight, a uniting theme in the work is elicited, which progressively integrates broader aspects of personal development, some of which are alluded to in the text. The initial works tend to be ro...

Derek Tribe FTSE, OBE, OA was a remarkable Australian international Australian agricultural scientist, who as a young academic migrated from England to assume the mantle of Sir Samuel Wadham at the University of Melbourne in the 1950s. From that base he was instrumental in the creation in Africa of what became the International Livestock Research Institute – one of the 15 green revolution centres that support third world research. Having expanded the Faculty of Agricultu...

SMALL FARMERS SECURE FOOD: SURVIVAL FOOD SECURITY, THE WORLD’S KITCHEN & THE CRITICAL ROLE OF SMALL FARMERS Small farmers tilling handkerchief sized farms feed more than half the world. They thus maintain national stability, forestall conflict and reduce emigration. Secure food supply is nothing short of national security. Such facts define the poor world, yet are misunderstood by nations that influence international development. Practitioners know that small farme...