The History of Agriculture (II)

Agriculture Through the Millennia 

The previous post talked about the possible causes for the origin of agriculture. It must be noted that this was not an all or nothing switch from the hunter-gatherer lifestyle to agriculture but instead the transition to and development of agriculture took a slow few thousands of years. Two dominant themes that are thought to be the drivers behind the increasing influence of agriculture are 1) the ability to control food supply and 2) increasing population pressure.

(I will not delve too much into the details/ controversies in theories of the pre-modern period of agricultural evolution because I feel that I do not have the relevant experience in anthropological studies and that it is not really the focus of the blog but is here to provide a more wholesome picture and to point out some relevant and more certain points)

Through the ~10,000 years, archaeological evidence demonstrated that humans selected crops suitable or better adapted to growth in their areas such as rice in Asia, wheat, barley and lentils in the fertile crescent. During the Bronze Age, the Sumerians were said to be the pioneers of intensive agriculture i.e. large-scale mono-cropping systems. This was helped by 1) the fertility of the fertile crescent and 2) the invention of technological know-how that  allowed the harnessing of animal power such as plowing by oxen and practices of irrigation. This gave them more control over the variables that affected the crops they grew.  It was also during that time that the earliest sheep and goats were domesticated.  Later on at around ~3000BC, the common crops of potato, tomato, beans and pepper were cultivated in the New World (Americas). This proliferation of agriculture was said to have occurred through what R. Braidwood calls 'cultural diffusion' between 'nuclear zones'.  Consequently, it was this development of agriculture that formed an important part of the  foundations of transformation to civilizations i.e. cities.

Through the middle-ages and renaissance, agricultural expansion was facilitated by further improvements of irrigation technologies and build-up of farming techniques through greater scientific discovery e.g. invention of crop rotation and sharing of technological know-how such as the mouldboard plough (invented by the Chinese) which greatly improved efficiency. These  technological improvements when coupled to repeated selection of hardy and productive crop strains allowed higher and higher productivity. 

www.xtimeline.com/timeline/History-of-agriculture-1

The Global Proliferation of Modern Farming

Still, these developments in agriculture, though they occurred over a span of thousands of years, cannot compare to the massive change which occurred during the period of industrial agriculture which came about with the industrial revolution. And this is where we get to the grit of the matter, where agriculture crosses paths with global environmental change. First in the sense of  cumulative change (e.g. landuse changes in local areas summed up to affect large proportion of the world) and later systemic change (e.g. emissions of greenhouse gases from crop cultivation or livestock rearing).  In subsequent posts, I will attempt to address the significant events in modern agriculture and their environmental impact (both good and bad) through recent decades. These areas include (not exhaustively):

Issues/ Problems:

1. Agricultural Landuse

2. Use of Mechanical help & Long-distance Transport
• Came about due to the availability of fossil fuels for energy

3. Use of Fertilisers
• Came about with the knowledge of what nutrients plants need & processes to artificially synthesize them

4. Use of Pesticides
• Came about due to the manufacture of chemicals in WWII

5. Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation
• Came about with the knowledge of vitamins, growth hormones and antibiotics

6. The Green Revolution

Proposed solutions:

1. Organic farming

2. Sustainable Agriculture

 etc.

So, what can we draw from all of the history of agriculture?

Once again, we can see that the development of agriculture through the  years drew upon the expertise of technological and scientific knowledge (allowing the 'exploitation' of the natural environment). The question I would like to ask is: how beneficial has this development been? Has sound scientific knowledge really informed this development? These, of course, are highly contentious questions.

For one, it has indeed supported the prolific growth of the human population which otherwise would have been quite impossible (food production doubled four times between 1820 and 1975) while reducing the manpower and freeing up our time for countless other activities. Still, the environmental impacts of these decisions have never been more telling and lucid than they are today. Many nay-sayers, witnessing the onslaught of the degradation of both environment and human health brought about by many modern practices have hailed for a return to a back-to-the-past farming model. However, I would like to put forth that in this evolution of agriculture, while it might have veered off the course more than we would have liked, can't be all bad. Surely some techniques were grounded in sound ecological principles and should continue to be upheld into the future. I am looking forward to teasing out, as much as I can, what exactly these might be and searching out alternatives where we have failed so far.

References:

1. John Abraham. 1991. Food and Development: The Political Economy of Hunger and the Modern Diet. WWF & Kogan Page Ltd.

2. History of Agriculture. http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/History_of_agriculture#Sumerian_agriculture

3. History of Agriculture. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_agriculture

4. Robert J. Braidwood. 1979. "The Agricultural Revolution". Hunter, Farmers and Civilization: Old World Archaeology. http://pleasanton.k12.ca.us/avhsweb/murphyc/web/apworld/summer/farm.pdf