Agricultural Engineer

Find various books on being an Agricultural Engineer, from fact, to fiction. SA Career Focus has assembled these titles for your convenience.

To purchase any of the books reviewed below, please click on the title/icon of the relevant book, and you will automatically be linked to the  supplier's website. All orders, purchases and payments are dealt with directly by them.

An agricultural engineer is someone who uses engineering technology, together with the knowledge of biological sciences, to attend to and resolve agricultural engineering concerns. An agricultural engineer develops designs for (and supervises the erection of) structures and facilities in the agricultural sphere.

Engineering for Land Drainage: A Manual for Laying Out and Constructing Drains for the Improvement of Agricultural Lands

Originally published in 1905, "this brief treatise on drainage engineering is intended for the use of those who are charged with the responsibility of making plans for and executing drainage improvements. It puts the experience and practice of years into a form which will be available to others who wish to quickly acquire the principles and practice of land drainage."Contents include: The Drainage Engineer - The Agriculturist and Soil DrainageSoilsLand Drainage PracticeLevelling And TopographyLaying Out Drains in the FieldFixing the Grade of DrainsMaps and RecordsGrading the Ditches for TileFlow of Water Through PipesSize of Lateral DrainsOpen DrainsDrainage of Barnyards, Cattle-Lanes, etc.Road DrainageDrainage DistrictsEstimates of CostBenefits and Profits of Land Drainage Not only an interesting historical reference, but quite handy information for today.

Review by Kalahari.net

Principles of Soil Physics

A study of the properties and processes of soil on agricultural production, the environment, and of the sustainable use of natural resources. Contained within are examples of assessment methods, graphs, problem sets, and tables from studies around the world with tables, photographs, and equations.

Review by Kalahari.net

Agroecology in Action: Extending Alternative Agriculture Through Social Networks

Detailed case studies of agrecological initiatives show how growers, scientists, agricultural organizations, and public agencies can form partnerships to develop innovative, ecologically based techniques for reducing reliance on agrochemicals. American agriculture has doubled its use of pesticides since the publication of Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" in 1962. Agriculture is the nation's leading cause of non-point source-water pollution - runoffs of pesticides, nutrients, and sediments into streams, rivers, lakes, and oceans. In "Agroecology in Action", Keith Douglass Warner describes agroecology, an emerging scientific response to agriculture's environmental crises, and offers detailed case studies of ways in which growers, scientists, agricultural organizations, and public agencies have developed innovative, ecologically based techniques to reduce reliance on agrochemicals. "Agroecology in Action" shows that agroecology can be put into action effectively only when networks of farmers, scientists, and other stakeholders learn together.;Farmers and scientists and their organizations must work collaboratively to share knowledge - whether it is derived from farm, laboratory, or marketplace. This sort of partnership, writes Warner, has emerged as the primary strategy for finding alternatives to conventional agrochemical use. Warner describes successful agroecological initiatives in California, Iowa, Washington, and Wisconsin. California's vast and diverse specialty-crop agriculture has already produced 32 agricultural partnerships, and Warner pays particular attention to agroecological efforts in that state, including those under way in the pear, winegrape, and almond farming systems. The book describes some cases in which agroecological strategies have met resistance from publicly funded institutions, including the extension services of state universities. But it also shows how popular concern about the health and environmental impacts of pesticides has helped shape agricultural environmental policy, and how policy has in turn stimulated creative solutions from scientists, extension agents, and growers.

Review by Kalahari.net

Precision Agriculture

Precision Agriculture covers in detail the spatial data for recordkeeping, spatial analysis in decision making and modeling prescription maps for variable rate applications. It provides an overview of precision farming concepts and the tools of precision farming system. This book isn?t just about precision farming, but it takes one important and difficult aspect of precision farming and puts it into an understandable and teachable format.

Review by Kalahari.net

The Earthscan Reader in Sustainable Agriculture

Our agricultural and food systems are not meeting everyone's needs, and despite great progress in increasing productivity over the past century, hundreds of millions of people remain hungry and malnourished. This book describes a different form of agriculture: one founded more on ecological principles and which is also more harmonious with people, their societies and cultures. The latest in the Earthscan Reader Series, this volume brings together the most influential scholarship in the field, containing both theoretical developments and critical appraisals of evidence addressing what is not sustainable about current or past agricultural and food systems, as well as studies of transitions towards agricultural and rural sustainability at farm, community, regional, national and international levels, and through food supply chains.

Review by Kalahari.net

Shaping the Future of Water for Agriculture: A Sourcebook for Investment in Agricultural Water Management

Agricultural water management is a vital practice in ensuring reduction, and environmental protection. After decades of successfully expanding irrigation and improving productivity, farmers and managers face an emerging crisis in the form of poorly performing irrigation schemes, slow modernization, declining investment, constrained water availability, and environmental degradation. More and better investments in agricultural water are needed. In response, the World Bank, in conjunction with many partner agencies, has compiled a selection of good experiences that can guide practitioners in the design of quality investments in agricultural water.;The messages of "Shaping the Future of Water for Agriculture: A Sourcebook for Investment in Agricultural Water Management" center around the key challenges to agricultural water management, specifically: building policies and incentives; designing institutional reforms; investing in irrigation systems improvement and modernization; investing in groundwater irrigation; investing in drainage and water quality management; investing in water management in rainfed agriculture; investing in agricultural water management in multipurpose operations; coping with extreme climatic conditions; and assessing the social, economic, and environmental impacts of agricultural water investments. "Shaping the Future of Water for Agriculture" is an important resource for those interested and engaged in development with a focus on agricultural water.

Review by Kalahari.net

Principles of Soil and Plant Water Relations

"Principles of Soil and Plant Water Relations" combines biology and physics to show how water moves through the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum. This text explores the instrumentation and the methods used to measure the status of water in soil and plants. The basic methods of tensiometry, pyschrometry, stomatal porometry, as well as newer methods of tension infiltrometry; time domain reflectometry are examined. Principles are clearly presented with the aid of diagrams, anatomical figures, and images of instrumentation. An added feature includes short biographies of important scientists at the end of each chapter. Intended for graduate students in plant and soil science programs, this book also serves as a useful reference for agronomists, plant ecologists, and agricultural engineers.

Review by Kalahari.net