History of Agriculture
Unit 2: Pl nts s Food
Dr. K therine H gely, PhD
Tuesd y, September 10th, 2024
Outline
Agriculture
• How did we get here?
• Ancient agriculture
• Impact on plants
• Was it worth it?
• Ag in the modern age
• New hot science!
Assigned reading: Service 2023
Additional reading: Pronoun et al. 2024
NEWS FEATURE
Unearthing the origins of agriculture
Archaeobiology is offering new insights into the long-debated roots and evolution of the practice that
made large human settlements and our modern complex society possible—even if at a cost.
John Carey, Science Writer
from https://www.pnas.org by 184.97.241.253 on August 25, 2023 from IP address 184.97.241.253.
As the last great ice sheets were retreating and the Pleistocene Epoch was Big Agriculture has its roots in the advent
ending, humanity began an epic journey. For hundreds of thousands of years, of human farming activities that started
nearly 12,000 years ago, an origin story that
our ancestors had survived by hunting animals and gathering edible wild plants. archaeobiologists and other researchers are
But starting about 11,700 years ago, people began to use wild plants in ways still trying to parse. Image credit: Science
that changed the plants themselves, a process called domestication. People also Source/Stockr.
began to alter their environments as they cultivated those plants. The result was
the profound landscape and cultural transformation we know as agriculture.
The transition was one of the major milestones in human evolution. “I compare
agriculture to bipedalism and fire,” says geneticist Hugo Oliveira at the Universidade
do Algarve in Faro, Portugal. “It changed completely the way we interact with the
environment, the way we interact with ourselves.” Agriculture is what made possible
specialized professions, including art and music, and the countless trappings and
manifestations of human society today, even as it also heralded such new woes
as malnutrition, inequalities, pestilence, and climate change (See also this Special
Feature: The Past 12,000 Years of Behavior, Adaptation, and Evolution). And once
agriculture developed past a certain threshold, says Dorian Fuller, a professor of
archaeobotany at University College London, UK, “there was no going back.”
The precise drivers of agriculture remain a matter of fierce debate. Were people
a
a
a
a
a
Neolithic Revolution
Reconstruction of settlement of late Jomon period, Japan, illustration
UNSPECIFIED - CIRCA 1900: Prehistory, Neolithic, Japan. Reconstructed late Jomon period settlement. Drawing. (Photo By DEA PICTURE LIBRARY/De Agostini
via Getty Images)
~11,700 years ago, people began
choosing (whether intentionally or
unintentionally) certain plants over
others, beginning the process of
“domestication”
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/18/science/ancient-farmers-archaeology-dna.html
Why?
• Climate stresses on people
• Scarcity of food because of
population growth
• Religious or cultural practices
emphasizing bountiful feasts drove
increased food production
• OR did the abundance and
usefulness of plants lure people into
growing more of them?
Archeobiology!
• Domestication and cultivation
began in many places at the same
time
• “Lost Crops”
• Transformation to agriculture took
thousands of years
• Each crop has a di erent evolution
Iva annua
https://www.illinoiswild owers.info/weeds/plants/sumpweed.html
wheat (Triticum aestivum)
barley (Hordeum vulgare) Near East
peas (Lathyrus oleraceus)
cereals
Syria
gs (Ficus carica)
rice
China
millet
squash
Mexico
corn
How did plants change
with domestication?
• Seeds grew larger
• Non-shattering plants
What are some di erences
you notice between the
column on the left and those
pictures on the right?
fi
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“The Soil Nutrient Trap”
Was it worth it?
“Besides malnutrition, starvation, and epidemic
diseases, farming helped bring another curse
upon humanity: deep class divisions.”
-Jared Diamond, “The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race”
A Condensed History of American Agriculture 1776–1999
1776–99 1800 1810 1820 1830 1840 1850 1860 1870 1880 1890
1785 1802 1810 1820 1834 1840’s 1850’s 1862 1874 1887 1890
The Philadelphia Society George Washington First American agricul- Agriculture Committee, McCormick reaper The growing use of fac- Commercial corn and U.S. Department of Availability of barbed Hatch Experiment Second Morrill Act broad-
for the Promotion of Parke Custis instituted tural periodical, the U.S. House of patented tory-made agricultural wheat belts began to Agriculture established wire allowed fencing of Station Act set up ened land -grant program
Agriculture and other agricultural fair in Agricultural Museum, Representatives, machinery increased develop rangeland, ending era Federal-State coopera- and set up funding for
agricultural groups Arlington, VA began publication established farmer’s need for cash 1862 of unrestricted, open- tion in agricultural black land-grant schools
organized and encouraged com- The drive for agricultur- range grazing research
1825 mercial farming al education culminated 1890
1793 Agriculture Committee, in the passage of the Census showed that the
Invention of cotton gin U.S. Senate, Morrill Land Grant frontier settlement era
established College Act was over
1862 1890
Homestead Act gave First Federal Meat
free public land to per- Inspection Act
DA ED
sons willing to farm it
1896
US ECT
1865-70 Rural Free Delivery
The sharecropping sys- (RFD) started
tem in the South
P
NS
replaced the old slave
plantation system
I
1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990–99
1900-1910 1914 1922 1932-36 1945-70 1954 1964 1970 1980’s 1990 1997
George Washington Smith-Lever Extension Capper-Volstead Act Drought and dust-bowl Revolution in agricultur- Agricultural Trade Food Stamp Act and Environmental Quality Biotechnology became Food, Agriculture, USDA issues Civil Rights
Carver, director of agri- Act passed setting up a gave cooperatives legal conditions developed al technology brought Development and War on Poverty Improvement Act a viable technique for Conservation, and Action Team report, offer-
cultural research at national extension standing greatly increased yields Assistance Act (P.L. improving crop and Trade Act and Omnibus ing 92 recommendations
Tuskegee Institute, service 1933 and more specialized, 480) facilitated agricul- livestock products Budget Reconciliation for overcoming past
pioneered in finding new Agricultural Adjustment capital-intensive farms tural exports and Act increased farmers’ injustices
uses for peanuts, sweet Act (AAA) initiated crop foreign aid 1985 flexibility in planting
potatoes, and soybeans, and marketing controls 1946 Food Security Act low- under government 1998
thus helping to diversify National School Lunch 1954-55 ered government farm programs HACCP is implemented
southern agriculture. 1936 Act Rural development supports, promoted to target and reduce the
Soil Conservation and program begins exports, and set up the 1993 presence of pathogens
1902 Domestic Allotment Act 1947 Conservation Reserve Revised General in meat and poultry
Reclamation Act linked farm programs General Agreement on 1956 Program Agreement on Tariffs
facilitated irrigation with conservation Tariffs and Trade Soil Bank Program and Trade (GATT) and 1999
(GATT) established authorized new North American Drop in many commodi-
1906 1936 working procedures Free Trade Agreement ties prices, combined with
Food and Drug Act, a Rural Electrification Act that substantially (NAFTA) lowered trade disastrous weather in
landmark in food safety (REA) greatly improved reduced tariffs between barriers many parts of the country,
quality of rural life member nations caused increased
1908 1996 demand for USDA farm
President Roosevelt’s Federal Agriculture programs
Country Life Improvement and
Commission was estab- Reform Act revised 1999
lished and focused farm programs to The "Roadless Initiative"
attention on rural increase reliance on is implemented to pre-
problems market signals serve roadless tracts in
National Forests, secur-
ing fish and wildlife habi-
tat and protecting natural
resources
https://www. yingmag.com/she-runs-a-crop-dusting-business/
“To minimize biodiversity loss,
conservation biologists have
focused on identifying and
prioritizing regions of high
species richness, endemism,
and threat.”
biodiversity hotspot concept:
assumes that species diversity is
spatially congruent with the
contributions that it provides to
people and therefore, protecting
areas with the largest concentrations
of threatened species will also
protect humanity indirectly.
Underlying Premise:
Biodiversity is most concentrated
where human cultural diversity is
highest, and is assumed that high
bicultural diversity is associated with
high concentrations of species used by
humans.
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bi0cultural diversity: the
combination of biodiversity and
cultural diversity
“Documenting and understanding the
diversity and distribution of plant species
used by humans are thus crucial to
implement conservation strategies and
develop plant-based solutions to address
global societal challenges such as hunger,
diseases, and climate change.”
