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A Defining Era
26 June 2006 Volume 2, Issue 12 With the weather just getting warmer, we’ve finally finished getting all our garden seeds into the ground. Once again, we’re planting “heirloom” seeds that produce the most wonderful, flavorful varieties of vegetables. We’re also able to save seeds from the plants themselves, from year to year, so that we develop our own heirloom stock of seeds. In honor of planting season in New England, this issue of World History to Go focuses on the history of agriculture—from the first sowing of seeds 12 millennia (or so) ago to the controversial “Green Revolution” in developing countries during the latter part of the twentieth century. A Defining Era
Early Agriculture Technology
Inside the Berkshire Encyclopedia:
For more related topics, try articles like Agricultural Societies, Cereals, Erosion, Famine, and Food. Green RevolutionThe incubation of the Green Revolution occurred during the 1950s and 1960s, and it dramatically altered food production during the 1970s and 1980s. In 1970 around 15 percent of the Third World’s wheat- and rice-growing areas were cultivated with the new hybrid seeds. By 1983 the figure was more than 50 percent, and by 1991 it was 75 percent. Proponents argue that more than half of all economic benefits generated by GR technologies have gone to farmers and that plentiful harvests became commonplace in much of the world during the thirty-five years after 1960: Crop yields of wheat nearly tripled, those of rice nearly doubled, and those of corn more than doubled in ninety-three countries. Because of high-yield rice and wheat, scores of countries kept food production ahead of population growth. . . . The picture is not all rosy, however. Despite claims by proponents, monoculture [uniform planting of one crop species over a large acreage] did make crops more susceptible to infestations and damage by a single pest. When farmers turned to heavier doses of petroleum-based pesticides, the more-resistant pests survived, and their offspring returned the next year to cause even greater losses. . . . Millions of people, mostly agricultural workers, suffer from acute pesticide poisoning, and tens of thousands die every year from it. The horrific explosion at Union Carbide’s Bhopal, India, plant on 2 December 1984 killed an estimated 3,000 people and injured 200,000 more. The chemical Sevin manufactured at Bhopal was essential for India’s Green Revolution. In addition, ever-rising doses of pesticides have meant that they ended up in water supplies, animal and human tissues, and soil with often unforeseen consequences. [From the article “Green Revolution” by Alexander M. Zukas, in the Berkshire Encyclopedia of World History.] 
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We had hoped to meet many of our world history colleagues and subscribers at the World History Association conference last weekend, and planned to do some podcasting there, too. But I was unable to travel because of a severely sprained ankle. So sorry to miss you! I've found myself wondering how someone whose year-round household food supply depended on being able to work in the fields this month would, in centuries or millennia past, have coped. I've had the luxury of working remotely from home, car transportation when needed, and a plastic brace, but I'm sure they would simply have had to carry on. How privileged we are! With warm regards, |
The agrarian era began 10,000 to 11,000 years ago, with the appearance of the first agricultural communities. It can be defined as the era of human history in which agriculture was the most important of all productive technologies and the foundation for most human societies. It ended during the last 250 years as modern industrial technologies overtook agriculture in productivity and began to transform human lifeways. Though the agrarian era lasted a mere 10,000 years, in contrast to the 250,000 years of the era of foragers that preceded it, 70 percent of all humanity may have lived during this period, their burgeoning numbers sustained by the agrarian era’s productive technologies. [From the article “Agrarian Era” by David Christian, in the 
Permanent settlements coincide with the development of agriculture. Starting some 12,000 years ago, people in the Middle East began to harvest wild wheat and barley, and to help these plants grow by sowing seeds and clearing away weeds. To chop down trees, they made smooth-sided stone axes. By storing grains from one harvest to the next, they were able to stay in one place and build permanent houses; the first known settlement was Jericho, founded c. 7350 BCE. They also domesticated animals: first dogs, then sheep and goats, then pigs, donkeys, and cattle. Agriculture developed in China and Southeast Asia in the ninth millennium BCE, in Europe from the seventh millennium, in West Africa from the fourth, and in Mexico from the second millennium on. In the Americas, the process started later and took longer because there were fewer wild plants and animals that could be domesticated: corn, beans, and squash were the primary domesticated plants, and dogs, turkeys, guinea pigs, and llamas the primary domesticated animals. Other tools and skills that made possible agriculture and animal husbandry included digging sticks and hoes to prepare the ground, sickles to harvest grains, baskets and bins to hold crops, and fences to keep animals. [From the article “Technology—Overview” by Daniel R. Headrick in the
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