ENVIRONMENT

FROM THE GOOD EARTH: A Celebration of Growing Food Around the World by Michael Ableman. (Abrams: $39.95; 168 pp.) “Agriculture, writes Wes Jackson in the introduction to Ableman’s hopeful and inspiring book, “not agribusiness--is the source of culture. We have to ask: Is the deterioration of the environment an outward mirror of an inner condition?” This is a book, he assures us, about “agriculture with a human face.” So many shades of green in these rich color photographs! So many faces from different parts of the world, different ages, growing such a wide variety of good foods with a wide variety of tools and methods: Intercropping! Raised beds! Weeds! China, Peru, the “Garden of Eatin”’ at the corner of 25th and Dickinson in South Philadelphia (see above), tended mostly by old black women. And by contrast, the Central Valley, where the caption reads, “Where are the families? Where has everyone gone?”