Agricultural Technologies

ENTC 3020 Technology & Society

In the Beginning...

• 10,000 B.C.: The end of a major ice age
• Temperatures Rose
• Rainfall Diminished
• Vegetation began dying
• Herds began disappearing

Nomads

• Defined roles
  Men hunt, herd, and protect
  Women prepare meals, make clothing, raise children
• Little technical innovation
• "A man's wealth is his burden."

About Four or Five Millennium Later...

• 6000 to 5000 B.C.
• Nomads moved from higher grasslands to the river valleys
• Hunter gatherers > settlers
• Settlements > Villages & cities

"Agricultural Revolution"

Fertile Crescent

• Tigris and Euphrates Rivers
  Mesopotamia (a.k.a., Syria & Iraq)
• Middle East
  An example: an oasis called Jericho
  3,000 people by 6000 B.C.
  A walled city of 8 to 10 acres

The Nile River-Egypt

• Long, fertile ribbon 750 miles (1200 km)
• 3 annual periods
  The Flood
  The Retreat of the Waters
  The Drought

Planting Technologies

• Hand planting of seeds
  Haphazard method
• Pointy digging sticks
  Levers which lift the soil
  'Give me a lever and I will move the earth'
• Scratch Plow
  Forward curving wooden blade
  Pair of handles in back
  Pulled by oxen
  Used in light soil
  Square fields
  V-shaped, crisscrossed rows

The Plow-An Instrument of Surplus

1. The plow enabled farmers to plant more food
2. Thus giving people (and animals) a dependable surplus
3. Now, not everybody had to farm for sustenance
4. Thus giving them a new freedom to specialize

Specialists

• Builders and organizers
  Irrigation ditches, canals, & tombs
  Masons (civil engineers)
• Astronomers and priests
• Carpenters and weavers
• Bakers and potters
• Leather workers
• Metal workers-blacksmiths
• Merchants and traders
• Sailors and explorers
• Scribes and bureaucrats

Moldboard Plow

• 500 A.D. in central Europe
• Two front wheels and beam
• Pulled by oxen (up to 8)
• Plow heavy, wet, entangled clay
• Metal knife to cut the slab
• Wooden moldboard to scoop and throw the slab to the right

Horse Power

• 500 A.D. to 800 A.D.
• Europeans adapted the camel collar
  (Collars for oxen choked horses)
• Nailed horseshoe allowed horses to work in all environments (stony, muddy, etc.)
• Horses are twice as productive as oxen

Crop Rotation-the three field rotation method

1. Oats and legumes (peas and beans) in Spring
2. Cereals in Autumn
3. Fallow for grazing (manure applied free!)

• Using this method, output increased 50%

Fertilizers

• Two Nile River sources provide manure and organics and nitrogen sources

1. Lakes-Decaying vegetation
2. Plateau-Soil rich in potash

• The Aswân High Dam in Egypt formed Lake Nasser & stopped the annual floods
  One of the first industries built was a fertilizer plant.

Food Technologies

• Farming equipment
  Muscle (muscle and beast)
  Engines (steam then the internal combustion)
• Storage
  Drying, milling, and processing
  Cold storage (ice í refrigeration)

Industrial Revolution Brought:

• Scientific farming (crop rotation)
• Root crops -- Potatoes, turnips, sugar beets, etc.
• Sanitation systems
• All this lead to increased life expectancies and population growth

Types of Agriculture

• Hunter-gatherer/nomadic
• Subsistence/local use farmer
  Approx. 1/2 of all food production
• "Cash crop" producer
  Highly industrialized and capitalized "agri-business"

American Agri-business

• Mid-1800s -- McCormick Reaper & 19th Century Plows
• 1920s -- Multi-purpose Tractor
  "Power takeoff" (PTO)
• Hybrid crops have been "designed" to fit the machines
• Intensive use of chemicals

The Green Revolution-A Success Story

• Better, higher yielding crops
• Bio-technologies
• More efficient
• Less than 3% of the U.S. population grows the food for national need + export + surplus

The Green Revolution-Is More Better?

Irrigation

• Increased salinity of soils
• Water resource diversion
• Drinking water
• Recreational use
• Shrinking aquifers
• Salt water infiltration

Fertilizer Usage

• Fossil fuel-based (scarce & expensive)
• Complex manufacturing facilities
• Environmental problems-Run-offs lead to "algae blooms"

Machinery

• Expensive
• Complex
• Fossil fuel dependent
• Maintenance problems
• Inappropriate technologies

Pesticides, Herbicides, and Fungicides

• Resistant species
• Diseases
• "Collateral damage"
• Complex manufacturing facilities
• Poisoning of the ecosystem-Air, soil, and water pollution

Hybrid strains

• Vulnerable to epidemics
• Distribution
• World-wide scope
• Transportation is expensive

Storage problems

• Pilfering
• Rats & other pests

The rates of yield increases are quickly decreasing

• Some efforts are approaching the point of diminishing returns
• The rate of population growth needs to fall-quickly
• Increases in agricultural productivity support more people and animals
• Fewer people are required to farm
• Local development requires food and capital
• Resource reallocation
  

Three Historically Effective Ways to Limit Population

1. War
2. Disease
3. Starvation

The World Food Problem

• Pressures upon land and water resources
• Uncertain energy supplies
• Environmental limits
• Shortages of agricultural products
• The World Food Problem
• Capital ($, £, ¥, etc.)
• Poverty and development
• Dumping of surplus food

Technology

• Use "Appropriate" technologies
• Training and education
• Build & support infrastructure

Climate

• The climate has been abnormally constant for the past several decades
• This climate has been highly favorable for growing crops in the northern hemisphere

Solutions Require

• Consideration of ethical and moral issues
• Global political issues
• International cooperation
• Harmonization of national farm policies with world food goals
• Long-term perspective

Technology to the Rescue?

• Major breakthroughs will be required to overcome difficulties
• Food production will remain dependent upon traditional practices
• Dietary practices will limit options
• Lab-to-field time lags will limit application of new technologies

Our Best Hopes

• Increasing yields from land already under the plow
• Narrowing the gap between the least and most efficient yields of food per unit of land

"Masters of Our Fate"- Two Views

• Mastery comes from our domination of the physical environment
• Mastery comes from understanding and molding the living environment

References

• Burke, J., (1978). Connections. Boston: Little, Brown, & Co.
• Bronnowski, J., (1973). The Ascent of Man. Boston: Little, Brown, & Co.
• Marcus, A. & Segal, H. (1989). Technology in America: A Brief History. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich
• Teich, A., (1993) Technology and the Future (6 Ed).
  New York: St. Martin's Press.
• Volti, R. (1992). Society and Technological Change (2nd Ed). New York: St. Martin's Press.
• Wilson, T., (1974). World Food: The Political Dimension. Washington, D.C.: Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies