Transcript Intensive agriculture

Cultural Anthropology
Getting Food
Cultural Anthropology
Food-getting activities take
precedence over all other
survival needs, including
reproduction, social control,
defense, and transmission of
knowledge to the next
generation
Cultural Anthropology
In our society food-getting
strategies are simplified – we
merely need to go to the
supermarket
Video:
"'Freegans' Take Green to Extreme"
Cultural Anthropology
But for some of the world, the
level of food-getting takes up
more time and is much more
labor-intensive. It is called
subsistence economics.
Cultural Anthropology
Subsistence economics is a
situation where basically all ablebodied adults are engaged in
getting food for themselves and
their family as their main activity
Cultural Anthropology
Subsistence economics is how
humans obtained their food for
millions of years by foraging for
their subsistence – e.g.
gathering plants, nuts, berries,
scavenging, hunting and fishing
Cultural Anthropology
Foraging is much less common
today
As a subsistence style, it is used
today by hunter-gatherers, who
make up only about 5 million
people on the planet
Cultural Anthropology
Foraging for plant life – gathering
plants, berries, seeds, nuts and
tubers is more common in areas
close to the equator as compared
to northern latitudes such as the
Arctic, where plant life is scarce
Video:
"Hunter-Gatherers"
Cultural Anthropology
In northern climates, since plants are
scarce, hunting is more predominant
See an Inuit (Eskimo) hunter in
Northern Canada in the classic
anthropological film “ “Nanook of the
North” (1922)
Foragers
Foragers actually spend less time
obtaining food than most other
types of food-getters
!Kung adults of Southern Africa
spend just 17 hours a week on
average getting food
Characteristics of Foragers
Foragers generally have
small communities with
no class differences
Getting Food: General Features of Food
Collectors
A survey of 180 food-collecting societies
indicates that there is a lot of variation with
regard to which food-getting activity is most
important to the society. Gathering is the
most important activity for 30 percent of the
surveyed societies, hunting for 25 percent,
and fishing for 38 percent.
Food Production
Most of the world does not forage for
food but produces it in one fashion or
another
3 types of food production; horticulture,
pastoralism, and intensive agriculture
No food production strategy is perfect,
as the videos illustrate
Video:
'Women’s Horticulture Group in Burkina Faso"
Food Production
Horticulturalists have relatively small
plots of land
Often use hand tools instead of
machines
May also raise small animals; pigs,
chickens, sheep, goats
Getting Food: Food Production
Horticulture
Plant cultivation carried
out with relatively simple
tools and methods; nature
is allowed to replace
nutrients in the soil, in the
absence of permanently
cultivated fields
Main Horticultural
Method - Shifting
cultivation
A type of horticulture in
which the land is worked
for short periods and then
left to regenerate for some
years before being used
again
Characteristics of Horticulturalists
Horticulturalists may often
move their villages every
few years to avoid
overcultivating the land
Characteristics of Horticulturalists
Nevertheless, their way of
life is more sedentary
than foragers and they
are more densely
populated than foragers
Characteristics of Horticulturalists
They also have the
beginnings of different
specializations within
their roles – e.g. parttime politicians
The Yanomamö – Slash and Burn
Horticulturalists
Slash-and-burn
A form of shifting
cultivation among
horticulturalists in which
the natural vegetation is
cut down and burned off.
The cleared ground is used
for a short time and then
left to regenerate.
Slash and Burn Horticulture
Video:
"Slash and Burn Agriculture"
Horticulturalists’ Village
Horticulturalists
• Slash and burn is an important adaptation
to the environment
• The field is easier to plant after its
vegetation is cut down
• The burned material provides nutrients for
a better crop yield
Pastoralism: The Lapps
Pastoralism
A form of subsistence
in which food-getting
is based directly or
indirectly on the
maintenance of
domesticated
animals. The Lapps
herd reindeer.
Video:
"Pastoralism in Kenya"
Pastoralists
The pastoralists are perhaps the most
endangered group in terms of their
food production lifestyle, since herding
animals takes up large amounts of
land, 15,000 square miles is not
unheard of -- not easy to obtain today
Intensive Agriculture
Intensive agriculture
Food production characterized by the permanent cultivation of fields and
made possible by the use of the plow, draft animals or machines, fertilizers,
irrigation, water-storage techniques, and other complex agricultural
techniques
Video:
• "What Intensive Farming Means"
Intensive Agriculture
People using intensive agriculture employ
techniques that let them cultivate fields
permanently, unlike horticulturalists
Key to permanent fields is either organic or
inorganic fertilizer to keep fields fertile
Intensive Agriculturalists
Another difference between horticulturalists
and intensive agriculturalists is the use of
tools
Intensive agriculturalists use at least a plow
pulled by an animal instead of the hand
tools of horticulturalists; usually
agriculturalists use automated equipment
to cultivate their crops
Intensive Agriculturalists
Intensive agriculturalists generally specialize
in just one or two crops; they can’t subsist
on these alone
Generally they will raise cash crops – crops
that they raise to bring to market so they
can generate money to buy other things
they need to survive
General Features of Intensive
Agricultural Societies
Societies with intensive agriculture are more
likely than horticulturalists to have towns
and cities, a high degree of craft
specialization, complex political organization,
and large differences in wealth and power
Problems with Agriculture
More likely to face problems with drought
and famine than horticulturalists
Since they depend on one crop only, the
crop can be destroyed by disease, floods,
lack of water, and there is no diversity of
back up food to rely on
Video:
• "Monoculture Farming Versus Polyculture
Farming"
The Origin, Spread, and Intensification of
Agriculture
Wheat is now grown in many areas of the United
States where hunting and gathering was practiced
Origins of Agriculture
The origins of agriculture are unclear as to
why this food production style began
We do know that it started about 9,00010,000 Y.B.P. probably in the Near East,
near Eastern Iran today, but arose soon
afterward independently (not through
diffusion) elsewhere
The Rise of Agriculture
One theory as to the rise of agriculture is
Mark Cohen’s
Believes that as we became better food
gatherers, populations became larger
The environment could no longer support
our foraging – parts of the world became
overforaged
The Rise of Agriculture
People began to increase the yields of their
most desirable wild plants by weeding and
perhaps deliberately planting the most
productive types of their favorite plants
Grains were a good choice here – they grow
quickly and they can be stored for later
The Rise of Agriculture
Others, including some archaeologists, say
that about 13,000-12,000 Y.B.P. there was
a general climate change
The Ice Age ended and the world got drier
and warmer and better suited to plant life,
especially a type of grain that grew
annually
The Rise of Agriculture
The archaeologists believe some foragers
exploited this grain, storing it, and by doing
so, gave up their nomadic foraging
existence
It is not clear how we became
agriculturalists, but agriculture changed
human existence dramatically, with the
rise of permanent settlements for the first
time in our history
Video:
• "The Neolithic"
The Rise of Agriculture
With permanent settlements and increasing
high population density, intensive
agriculturalists could probably dominate
their foraging, pastoralist, and
horticulturalist neighbors, and these
groups were pushed more and more into
the margins where we see them today
Agriculture and Nutrition
The irony of the agricultural revolution is that
it did not produce better nutrition,
especially in the beginning
Agriculture and Nutrition
• Even though agriculture could support
more people on a smaller amount of land,
the early agriculturalists over-relied on
single crops and did not get the variety of
foods of that the foragers were able to
obtain; therefore we see in the
archaeological record there is more
disease among early agriculturalists than
among their non-agricultural
contemporaries
Getting Food: General Features of Food
Collectors and Producers