Forgotten Agriculture

Other ways of farming have been sadly lost or neglected

Since we've been talking recently about the history of farming, I thought this would be a good time to talk about some alternative approaches to agriculture that various peoples around the world developed in contrast to the industrialized, mechanized monocrop system that dominates the world today.

Let's start with this article: America's Lost Crops, which is very much in the spirit of The Dawn of Everything.

It starts by retelling the conventional story of agriculture in the Americas. According to that story story, maize (corn) is the major player. Corn starts as an unassuming wild grass called teosinte which is laboriously domesticated somewhere in central Mexico, and from this crucible spreads throughout the Americas. As various societies start to adopt this crop one-by-one, they "ascend the ladder" of complexity, producing enough surplus food to sustain ritual specialists and political leaders, becoming "true" civilizations in the process. The history of other civilizations is very similar, just with other crops in place of corn (e.g. rice, wheat, potatoes, etc.)

The new theory disputes that picture. In this view, societies throughout the Americas cultivated a wide variety of crops long before corn came on the scene. All sorts of crops were simultaneously and independently domesticated throughout North America.

The article focuses on knotweed, sumpweed (Iva annua) and goosefoot. These crops have largely been "forgotten" due to subsequent agricultural developments, but are now being rediscovered by archaeologists according to the article. The evidence for the cultivation of these crops was long dismissed because they were thought to be too small to be a viable food resource, or because there were grown in locations like the Ozarks where it was just assumed that people had always lived an exclusively subsistence lifestyle. It turns out that these preconceptions were simply not true:

Over the past few decades, a small group of archaeologists have turned up evidence that supports a different timeline, which begins much, much earlier. Plant domestication in North America has no single center, they have discovered. In the land that’s now the U.S., domestication was not an import from farther south; it emerged all on its own. Before Mexico’s corn ever reached this far north, Indigenous people had already domesticated squash, sunflowers, and a suite of plants now known, dismissively, as knotweed, sumpweed, little barley, maygrass, and pitseed goosefoot. Together, these spindly grasses formed a food system unique to the American landscape. They are North America’s lost crops.

The lost crops tell a new story of the origins of cultivation, one that echoes discoveries all around the world. Archaeologists have now identified a dozen or more places where cultivation began independently, including Central America, Western and Eastern Africa, South India, and New Guinea. Even in the Fertile Crescent, the old story of a single agricultural revolution does not hold. People there domesticated more than one kind of wheat, and they did it multiple times, in disparate places. The agricultural revolution was both global and fragmented, less an earthquake than an evolutionary shift.

If correct, this new reading would debunk what is effectively a “Great Yeoman Theory of History.” No isolated bolts of human inspiration caused a wholesale shift in how humans live and eat; instead, one of civilization’s most important turns would be better understood as the natural outcome, more or less, of biology and botany, a marvel that could (and did) occur almost everywhere that people lived. The global food system that we have now is based on just a tiny fraction of all the plants on Earth. But other paths were always open.

One of the most interesting parts is how early humans who followed herd animals would have noticed over time which plants the animals ate, and which plants grew in their wake, which would have informed them about which plants to focus on. Over time, humans would have more intensively exploited those particular plants, which set the stage for domestication, even if unintentionally. The article looks at bison, but large ungulates would have produced the same effect in other locations:

Just like a flood on the banks of a river, bison create the fresh-turned earth that an annual grass needs to sow its seeds. When they’re not galloping across the prairie, bison graze patches into the grass, or wallow in it, clearing plots of land with their massive bulk as effectively as any farmer might and opening ground for small fields of Iva and other lost crops...So many domesticated plants started out this way, as what we now derisively refer to as weeds. They showed up and showed up and showed up at the edges of human experience, until someone started interacting with them.

Wild grasses would not have been so different from the wolves that hung around the edges of human campgrounds and over time evolved into dogs. Though we rarely give plants credit for such improvisation, some of the more flexible species could have found opportunity, too, in the disturbed ground of those campsite edges.

Seeing the Iva in such abundance on the prairie only reinforces the notion that humans might have begun to gather its seeds, so that selection pressure eventually shaped the plant into a form ever more appealing. In a way, this story is simpler than one that casts humans as heroic inventors who discover agriculture with their big human minds. And this less deliberate version could have happened over and over again, in many places across the planet...

By examining all sorts of other “lost crops" the article speculates on how agriculture could have looked quite different than what we eventually ended up with. Quoting one scientist: “There are 300,000 plant species, and humans have a known use for, like, 10 percent of them...We get half our calories from three of them. And we owe our history to a lot more than the ones we think about right now...I don’t think we’re ready to answer why we have the few dominant crops we have.”

Genetic evidence suggests that domestication makes more sense when you think of it as a long, drawn-out process, rather than an event. At the beginning of a human-plant relationship, humans would have unconsciously exerted selection pressure on plants, which would respond by, say, producing larger seeds or clustering their seeds near the top. Eventually, humans started choosing plants with certain qualities on purpose.

Thinking about agriculture’s origins in this way fills some of the gaping holes in the traditional narrative. For instance: How does a person envision a domesticated plant if they’ve never seen a domesticated plant? (They don’t have to.) And how does a society keep after that vision, generation after generation, for the thousands of years that domestication can take? The slow, evolutionary story, as opposed to the fast, revolutionary one, “doesn’t rely on a few clever people in every society making the decision,” Kistler said. “It just happens. It emerges.”

In this evolutionary process, the domestication of any particular plant need not be a one-off. Again, genetic evidence bears this out: Rice was domesticated at least three separate times, in Asia, South America, and Africa. In the Fertile Crescent, domestication took about 2,000 years, and early versions of wheat and other important crops were spread across the region.

https://archive.ph/DT5e0

This comports with the vision sketched out in The Dawn of Everything that people were not intentionally setting out to domesticate crops with the end result of becoming slaves to them. Rather, a cooperative relationship emerged over time between humans and the various plants and animals they exploited. This relationship persisted over thousands of years while humans’ primary activities remained hunting and gathering. In some locations, these plants crossed the line into fully domesticated varieties, while in other regions they never did, indicating that there is not a hard-and-fast line to be drawn. This view makes a lot more sense given the abundant evidence that plants were domesticated independently in so many places at about the same time, although it does take away a little bit of agency from people and gives it back to the plants.

As we’ve seen, The Dawn of Everything discusses some of the agricultural techniques used by various societies around the world. All sorts of sustainable methods were also practiced throughout North America and other parts of the world. Let's take a look at some of them and see if we can learn anything.

This article from Discover Magazine looks at how the Mayans practiced agriculture. Initially the Mayans practiced swidden agriculture, but as their settlements grew in size alternative methods were developed such as terracing to increase crop yields. In order to retain sufficient water supplies during the dry season and prevent runoff, the Mayans constructed a vast network of canals and reservoirs to hold excess rainfall. These systems took a lot more work to create and maintain but allowed them to sustain many more people:

The researchers found that in the early days at [the Mayan site of] Yaxnohcah, people used slash and burn agriculture. It’s a technique that burns forest and bush to then plant crops on the rich carbonized soil left behind. But this technique is only sustainable for relatively low populations with lots of land to use. Once the city began to grow, reservoirs and crop terraces began to appear.

“These terraces really helped them to improve their agriculture,” Lentz says, adding that it’s more productive than slash and burn techniques, and reduces soil erosion.

They also raised some fields in swampy areas and drained other areas. This was important, Lentz says, because the area around Yaxnohcah doesn’t receive much rain during parts of the year. Tropical forests help retain water during the rainy season. If too much vegetation is cleared, however, rainwater will quickly drain into the porous soil substrate, which is mostly calcium carbonate. At that point, the water would become unavailable to the Maya inhabitants. To help retain water, the Maya built an elaborate system of reservoirs that gave them drinking water during the dry season and helped them extend their growing seasons.

The Mayans also planted food forests around their settlements which supplied them a number of useful materials for food, medicine, and construction. Today this system is known as agroforestry. It is much better at protecting the biodiversity of plants and animals than traditional agricultural approaches:

The techniques revealed that the trees growing around the reservoirs included types of figs, star apples, tropical plums, cashews, avocados and cacao — all plants that the ancient Maya used at that time. They also harvested palms for oil and other trees for fuel and construction. Additionally, the researchers also found evidence of seeds, pollen and other remains from wild plants that didn’t have a known use.

This indicates that the Maya were leaving parts of the forest around them intact, even close to the center of the city in Yaxnohcah. These areas would have been important sources of some wild plants they harvested for medicine and other non-timber products. They also helped to maintain biodiversity, compared to our single-crop orchards that we use to grow food in modern day.

How the Ancient Maya Practiced Sustainable Agriculture (Discover Magazine)

Ancient Maya used sustainable farming, forestry for millennia (University of Cincinnati)

In North America, native cultures which cultivated maize didn’t plant it from horizon to horizon like we do today. Instead, they planted it as part of an artificial ecosystem inspired by how the plants grow naturally in the environment, where each plant compliments the other. This is often referred to as a "three sisters" garden:

[T]he three sisters made up some 60-80% of the Wendat diet, and the Wendat culture, like many others across North America, was centred on the plants' cultivation...the men cleared the land and then the women and children would build up dirt piles and plant the beans. As the small seedlings began to grow, the farmers returned and placed corn kernels in the centre of the mounds (theories vary on whether it was corn or beans that were planted first). Next, winter squash was sown. As the plants matured, the cornstalks served as bean poles while the large squash leaves shaded the soil, creating a microclimate that preserved moisture and inhibited weeds.

Today we know that planting corn, beans and squash together results in better disease resistance, less reliance on fertilisers and improved crop yields. But for the Wendat people, it was a sacred act that respected ancient teachings...At the end of the growing season, the vegetables were harvested and stored for winter. Corn and beans were dried and kept in the longhouse in bark or wooden containers. As far as possible, everything was used. Corn husks were braided for rope and twine, or used as filling for pillows and mattresses. The best seeds were selected and saved for the next season's planting by the seed keepers, whose job it is to collect and protect seeds.

Not only was this system more environmentally-friendly, but it was far more nutritious than industrial monocrop agriculture based primarily around wheat, sugar, and cereals:

The three sisters don't just nurture the soil and each other...the three vegetables combined are exceptionally nutritious. Studies say that a diet based on maize, beans and squash can meet peoples' basic energy and protein requirements and can also help guard against diabetes. They're also high in antioxidants and provide trace minerals and folate, which guards against birth defects. But with the loss of farmland and the introduction of European staples including sugar, flour and butter, this ancient diet was almost completely replaced. The results were catastrophic. Elders say that the loss of traditional foods is almost as damaging as the loss of language...

The sacred 'sisters' of ancient America (BBC)

In the South Pacific, the Hawaiian islands are a unique and fragile ecosystem. They were also among the last places on earth to be colonized by humans. Yet that didn't prevent inhabitants from developing a highly productive system of cultivation which allowed them to produce food by working with the natural environment instead of against it. This system was known as ahupua'a. Like other indigenous methods, this system produced a wide variety of surplus crops that were highly nutritious:

Pre-contact, Kauai had more than 50 ahupua'a, with hundreds or even thousands more throughout the other Hawaiian islands. Described by Hawaiians as extending from mauka (mountains) to makai (ocean), each ahupua'a had its narrow starting point high in the inland volcanic peaks, and then widened, like a pie slice, to include a stretch of shore and the fishing grounds up to a mile out to sea. Channels diverted stream water to irrigate lo'i kalo (lowland taro pond fields), which were engineered to circulate water from pond to pond and prevent stagnation. The result: per-acre yields five times that of dryland farming.

Where the freshwater streams met the ocean, elaborate rock-walled fishponds mixed the nutrient-rich water from the taro ponds with tidal flow, creating ideal conditions for fattening fish captured through sluice gates. The uplands, considered wao akua (the realm of the gods), were off limits to all but those with knowledge of forest stewardship...

"The apuhua'a system was very holistic, thinking about the ecology of the whole watershed and the agricultural land and fisheries as one place," said Lei Wann, director of Limahuli Garden & Preserve, who is descended from one of the original families of Hā'ena. "This is the way we managed our resources for hundreds of years, and now we're coming around to see how well they understood and cared for their environment by what's left to us today."

Hawaii's ancient land management system (BBC)

Today, of course, most of Hawaii is given over to vast plantations growing export crops like pineapples, sugarcane, and coffee, meaning that, as the article informs us, Hawaii now imports 85 percent of its food supplies.

In South America, the kings of terracing were the Inka, who created technologically sophisticated platforms in the mountains known as andenes (singlular andén) to grow a wide variety of crops:

[Andenes] allowed Andean communities to overcome challenging environments, including steep slopes, thin soils, extreme and sharply fluctuating temperatures, and scant or seasonal rainfall. Fed by artificial pools and elaborate irrigation systems, andenes significantly expanded the area of cultivable land. They also conserved water, reduced soil erosion and—thanks to stone walls that absorbed heat during the day and then released it at night—protected plants from severe frosts. This enabled farmers to grow dozens of different crops, from maize and potatoes to quinoa and coca, many of which would not otherwise have survived in the region. The upshot was a dramatic increase in the overall amount of food produced.

Techniques such as andenes were combined with policies such as mitma, where people were moved to recently conquered territories to help cement Inca control; and mit'a, a form of compulsory public service used to provide manpower to build infrastructure, including a road network tens of thousands of kilometres long.

This approach to agricultural, community and imperial organisation allowed the Inca to amass large surpluses of food for use during droughts, floods, conflicts and other lean periods. These stockpiles—which included chuño, freeze-dried potatoes produced by repeated exposure to frost and bright sunshine—were kept in huge storehouses called qullqas. In the absence of a written language, the Inca used a complex system of multicoloured knotted strings known as quipu (or khipu) to maintain inventories, as well as keep track of population and astronomical data.

The innovative technology that powered the Inca (BBC)

A close second to the Inca were the Hani people of China and Vietnam, whose terraced fields were hand-crafted over many generations to produce a variety of crops including rice. Impossible to mechanize, these fields are still cultivated by hand today. It’s fascinating the extent to which these unique cultivation methods were integrated into the culture—and even the spirituality—of various peoples around the world.

All of these show that our Western approach to farming is not the only one, which is geared toward maximum profitability and yield rather than environmental stewardship or producing healthy, nutritionally-dense food. In fact, the food produced by our modern systems is literally killing us, while strip-mining topsoil and causing irreparable environmental damage. It makes you wonder how and why such a staggeringly awful system persists, as well as what that says about our society and its notion of “progress.” These examples show that there could have been—and, indeed, have been—other ways of farming and living on this planet.