A History of World Agriculture

From the Neolithic Age to the Current Crisis

Marcel Mazoyer, Laurence Roudart

• Publisher: Monthly Review Press
• Year: 2006
• ISBN:
  9781583674901
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

Only once we understand the long history of human efforts to draw sustenance from the land can we grasp the nature of the crisis that faces humankind today, as hundreds of millions of people are faced with famine or flight from the land. From Neolithic times through the earliest civilizations of the ancient Near East, in savannahs, river valleys and the terraces created by the Incas in the Andean mountains, an increasing range of agricultural techniques have developed in response to very different conditions. These developments are recounted in this book, with detailed attention to the ways in which plants, animals, soil, climate, and society have interacted.

Mazoyer and Roudart’s A History of World Agriculture is a path-breaking and panoramic work, beginning with the emergence of agriculture after thousands of years in which human societies had depended on hunting and gathering, showing how agricultural techniques developed in the different regions of the world, and how this extraordinary wealth of knowledge, tradition and natural variety is endangered today by global capitialism, as it forces the unequal agrarian heritages of the world to conform to the norms of profit.

During the twentieth century, mechanization, motorization and specialization have brought to a halt the pattern of cultural and environmental responses that characterized the global history of agriculture until then. Today a small number of corporations have the capacity to impose the farming methods on the planet that they find most profitable. Mazoyer and Roudart propose an alternative global strategy that can safegaurd the economies of the poor countries, reinvigorate the global economy, and create a livable future for mankind.

1

Evolution, Agriculture, History

We have given to thee, Adam, no fixed seat, no form of thy very own, no gift peculiarly thine, that thou mayest feel as thine own, have as thine own, possess as thine own the seat, the form, the gifts which thou thyself shalt desire. A limited nature in other creatures is confined within the laws written down by Us. In conformity with thy free judgment, in whose hands I have placed thee, thou art confined by no bounds; and thou wilt fix limits of nature for thyself.

—PICO DELLA MIRANDOLA, On the Dignity of Man

Life began to develop around 3.5 billion years ago in a solar system and on a planet formed 4.6 billion years ago in a universe whose origin is unknown but whose oldest light rays reach us from such a distance that we are led to conclude it has been expanding for 15 billion years. Since then, evolution has produced hundreds of millions of living species, many of which have disappeared in the course of time. The first to appear were plants, of which there are more than 500,000 species still living today, and then animals, which number nearly a million species. Not all living species have yet been identified, and every year new ones are discovered. The totality of individuals of a species living in a particular place at a given moment in time form a population of this species. The totality of plant and animal populations living in this place form a biocenosis. The biocenosis and the inanimate environment, or biotope (geology, morphology, climate) that it inhabits, form an ecosystem. All the ecosystems of the planet form the ecosphere.

All living beings, be they plants or animals, are formed from organic matter, water, and other minerals. Organic matter is formed from complex molecules (sugars, fats, proteins, nucleic acids) which, besides forming living beings, are also the source of the energy necessary for life and reproduction. Plants are autotrophs: they are capable of synthesizing, by means of solar energy, their own organic substance from water, carbonic gas, and other elements that they find in the atmosphere and in the soil. By contrast, humans and animals do not have this ability: they are heterotrophs. They live upon organic matter provided directly by plants which have produced it or provided indirectly by animals which have first consumed and assimilated it.

The biomass of an ecosystem is the total mass of organic matter that it contains, including waste products and excrement. Only plant species are productive of biomass; humans and animals do not produce it. They only feed upon it and transform it. These are exploitive species. That is why the fertility of an ecosystem, that is, its capacity to produce biomass, is ultimately measured by its capacity to produce plant biomass.

Most animals are simple predators that are content with obtaining their food by force from the wild species of plants and animals that they exploit. Some among them, however, provide a service for the exploited species. The bee, for example, transports the pollen it gathers from the flower, thereby facilitating its fertilization. But curiously, millions of years before the present, evolution produced several species of ants and termites that cultivate fungi or raise aphids. These are domestic fungi and aphids that the ants and termites exploit intensely through the constant work of managing the environment by multiplying the populations and promoting their development.

Humans are a much more recent species and not born to be farmers or stock-breeders, unlike these ants and termites. They became so after hundreds of millions of years of hominization, that is, biological, technical, and cultural evolution. It was only in the Neolithic era, less than 10,000 years ago, that humans began to cultivate plants and breed animals that they themselves had domesticated. Subsequently, they introduced these plants and animals into all sorts of environments, where they endeavored to propagate them. In this manner, the original natural ecosystems were transformed into cultivated ecosystems, fabricated and exploited by human care and attention. Since then, human agriculture has conquered the world: it has become the principal factor in the transformation of the ecosphere, and its gains in production and productivity have respectively influenced the increase in the number of people and the development of social groups which do not produce their own food.

Our intention in this chapter is to situate agriculture in the evolution of life and in the history of humanity. More exactly, we aim to respond to three essential questions:

— What is agriculture as a particular relation between living species?

— At what moment in the process of hominization did humans become farmers and why?

— Since then, what is the role played by agriculture in the historical development of humanity?

Compared to our own views on the concept of agrarian system and on the relation between agriculture and history, the rudiments of ecology, paleontology, soil science, and history presented here do not claim to teach anything to the specialists of each of these sciences. May they pardon us for having so outrageously diminished their knowledge. Our intention is simply to present in as concise and intelligible a manner as possible the essence of what one should know in order to respond to the questions we just posed and understand the rest of this book.

1. LIFE, EVOLUTION, AND AGRICULTURE

It is useful to present briefly some concepts from ecology in order to understand the nature of agriculture as a relationship between an exploiting species and one or several exploited species existing in a cultivated, human-made ecosystem.

Limiting Factor and Ecological Valence

All living beings find in the environment the resources necessary for their material existence: space, habitat, food, and the possibility to throw away waste materials derived from their life functions. Resources in any given environment are limited. Thus, there necessarily appears at one time or other conflict between the growing needs of a species that is multiplying within a given environment and the limited resources of this environment. When the population density becomes too great, when the quantities of water, minerals, pastures, or prey available at a particular critical period are totally consumed or become too scarce to remain easily accessible, then the growth of this population is blocked. The same thing happens when the waste material thrown away by a particular species encumbers the sites they occupy, diminishing or polluting its sources of provisions. The element of the environment that determines the maximum density the population of a species can attain over the long term at a given site is called the limiting factor. Of course, limiting factors vary from one species to another and vary from one environment to another for the same species.

In certain environments, a particular limiting factor for the development of a species (temperature, rainfall, food) can be found below a threshold of minimum tolerance or above a threshold of maximum tolerance, on the basis of which the development of this species becomes impossible. The level of this threshold varies according to species and their tolerance with respect to characteristics of the environment. The higher animals, humans, and certain domestic animals in particular, are very tolerant in relation to their environment. Their capacity to populate varied environments, that is, their ecological valence, is higher and their area of geographical extension is vast. On the other hand, some species demand very narrowly defined and rarely realized environmental conditions. Hence they are not widely dispersed and their ecological valence is weak.

The term “ecological valence” will be used here in a larger sense. It will designate not only the ability of a species to occupy varied environments, but also its capacity to populate them more or less densely. In this sense, the ecological valence of a species designates its potential for development: it is measured not only by the geographical extent of the species’ distribution but also by the maximum population density it can attain at the peak of its development.

Competition, Exploitation, Symbiosis

Often, two or more species struggle over the same resources. The opposition between the population of each species and the limitations of the environment is coupled with an opposition between the populations of each species in competition for the same resources. This competition, whether or not it involves an open struggle between competing populations, leads to their coexistence, within certain parameters, or to the elimination of one or several species.

One species can also exploit another, which acts as support, pasture, or prey for it. This exploitation can harm the development of the exploited species but, conversely, the development of the exploiting species can be conditioned by that of the exploited species. Such is the case when the latter forms an irreplaceable resource for the former. For example, a population of pandas is limited by the population of bamboos upon which it feeds exclusively.

Sometimes there exists between two species a reciprocal and necessary relation of exploitation, a relation that can be considered mutually beneficial to those species. Such a situation is called mutualism or symbiosis. For example, the nitrogen binding bacteria lodged in the bulges (or nodules) of the roots of leguminous plants contribute to supplying those plants with nitrogen. Ruminants and horses harbor bacteria in their intestines that facilitate the digestion of the cellulose materials essential in their dietary regime. Certain plants can only be pollinated by insects that gather the pollen.

Labor, Fabrication of the Environment, Agriculture, and Breeding

Some species transform the environment where they live to make it more accommodating and increase the available resources for their own use. They thereby increase their own ecological valence. Numerous animals build nests, shelters, and even an artificial environment (e.g., the collective urbanism of beavers, bees, termites, ants) that is necessary for their development. This transformation, this fabrication of the environment, is the product of a labor that is not, as is sometimes said, unique to the human species.

Moreover, some animal species go beyond the exploitation of other species by simple predation. They are devoted to transforming the environment in such a way as to create fabricated conditions of life that favor the development of the species they exploit. These exploited species, which could hardly develop without the support of the exploiting species, are called domestic. Some species of ants and termites cultivate mushrooms, which they eat. Other species of ants raise aphids whose honeydew they consume. In order better to understand the nature of the relations between cultivating or breeding species and domestic species, a quick analysis of the manner in which some ants manage their environment and organize the life of the species they exploit is not without interest.

The origin of ants goes back some 180 million years and evolution has produced around 18,000 species with different anatomies and modes of life. The oldest forms are generally insectivores, the forms from the middle period of evolution are omnivores, and the later forms practice specialized dietary regimes. By forcing the analysis a little, one could say that after the hunter nomadism of the early forms, a sedentary mode of life with the gathering of food appeared. Developing this metaphor, one could say that about a hundred of these species practice agriculture and breeding.¹

The Cultivator Ants

Several species of tropical American ants live in association with a particular species of domestic fungus. These ants manage the environment by constructing nests, galleries, and caves for the fungi. Among some species, the galleries go down several meters in depth and emerge into rooms with flat floors and vaulted roofs, sometimes as long as 1 meter and as wide as 30 centimeters, where the mushroom gardens are set up. In the heart of this layout, the immense central nest is sometimes linked up with several dozen small satellite nests within a radius of 200 meters. These ants also build a transportation infrastructure, a radiating network of trails made of built-up earth, several dozen meters long, 1 to 2 centimeters wide and set up for double circulation: one column of ants leaves for the harvest, while another returns to the nest with its cargo.

In order to multiply the mushrooms they eat, these ants methodically practice a whole series of cultivation processes. They prepare a bed for cultivation by collecting diverse organic debris (pieces of leaves, wood, roots, or tubers) from the outside which they tear up, grind, and fashion into mushroom beds. They plant fragments of cultivated mushrooms in these beds and systematically eliminate any other species of mushroom that begins to develop. Finally they regularly cut the filaments of mycelium, which prevents the fructification of the mushrooms and causes the formation of bulges, the mycotetes, which is what they exclusively eat. The social division of labor is well defined. The largest individuals guard the entrances to the nest and rarely leave those positions. The midsized individuals go outside the nest to harvest the plant debris, which they break up and mix into pellets. The smallest individuals maintain the mushroom gardens, feed the young larva and leave the nest only at the end of their lives. But this apparently well-regulated division of labor does not prevent some individuals from being undisciplined or even lazy. In exchange for all of the work involved in fabricating the environment and caring for the mushrooms in order to facilitate their multiplication, the ants receive abundant food, which can support the needs of hundreds of millions of them.

The Breeder Ants

Other species of ants live in association with a species of aphid, or mealybug. This partnership is a true form of breeding. In order to protect the aphids that they exploit, the breeder ants dig caves and lay out shelters in the ground or in a sort of carton, which are eventually linked up by galleries. The individuals in charge of guarding the shelters ward off the aphids’ predators and tear the wings of those that attempt to escape.

Among some species, the breeding is done by permanent underground stabling. The aphids are placed in chambers dug out around the roots of plants, where they can directly take the sap they feed on. Among other species, the breeding is done in the open air and the ants organize the food for the aphids by transporting them to better pasturage, namely to still-growing, young shoots. The reproduction of the aphids is carried out in good conditions, because the reproducing females are kept in underground chambers where the eggs are sheltered during the winter. The ants eat the aphids’ honeydew, their excrement, which is rich in sugars and other organic molecules derived from the sap of the plants they have ingested. To accomplish this, the ants rub the abdomens of the aphids with their antennae, stimulating them to excrete their honeydew.

The species of aphids raised by the ants are different from wild species. These are true domestic species whose wild ancestors are unknown. But one can assume that each species of domestic aphid is the result of a coevolution that simultaneously produced the species of breeder ant with which it is associated.

Agriculture and Breeding

The relationship between these ants and the mushrooms or aphids is not a pure and simple one of exploitation. The ants act upon the environment and on the mode of life of the domestic species they eat. They work to favor their development and protect them. They thus increase the ecological valence of the species they exploit and, as a result, extend the nutritional limits of their own development.

Increasing the ecological valence of the exploited species in order to increase that of the exploiting species is the basic logic governing the particular relations between species that characterize agriculture and breeding. Cultivating or breeding a species, far from marking the end of its exploitation, is only, on the contrary, the extension and intensification of this exploitation by other means. Agriculture and breeding are thus elaborated forms of mutualism, but a dissymmetric mutualism in which the development of the exploited species is controlled by the labor of the exploiting species and the development of the exploiting species is, in turn, conditioned by that of the exploited species.

2. HOMINIZATION AND AGRICULTURE

Homo sapiens sapiens, current or modern humans, thinking and knowing humans, is a very recent species among the thousands that evolution has produced in 3.5 billion years. This species appeared on earth only some 50,000 or 200,000 years ago, according to different authors. It then rapidly spread to all the continents and, since about 10,000 years ago, it has practiced agriculture and animal breeding, thereby completely changing most of the planet’s ecosystems.

However, humanity as a product of evolution is not endowed with specialized anatomical tools nor a genetically programmed mode of life that would, from the start, enable it to exercise a strong effect on the outside environment. Deprived of pincers, hooks, stingers, fangs, tusks, serrated teeth, hooves, or claws, a human being instead has hands which, even if they are the most flexible and versatile of tool-holders, are in themselves only a weak tool and a feeble weapon. Slow moving, bad climbers, poorly protected, essential and fragile parts of their anatomy exposed because of an upright posture, endowed with or rather afflicted with a weak capacity for reproduction and a belated maturity, humans are naked and defenseless beings who had at the outset a much poorer ecological valence than usually thought. They could barely survive by collecting plant products or capturing the most accessible animals in environments that were either benign or protected. Knowing little, poor in instincts, but immensely educable, their principal asset resided in the variety of dietary regimes and modes of life that could suit them. Humans ...