WUWT reader Susan Corwin writes:
Because it would work as CO2 became plentiful!
All the academic articles say: “and then agriculture happened”.
The “accepted wisdom”/consensus is:
….here was no single factor, or combination of factors, that led people to take up farming in different parts of the world.
But It is simple: it occurred because it Started Working.. 13,000 years ago.
People are clever, resourceful, adaptive, looking out for the best for their kids.
If it doesn’t work, it won’t happen.
If it will work, someone will figure it out and their kids/tribe will be successful
The Greenland Ice Chart for 9000 to 21000 years before present shows why agriculture arose:
(as presented on WUWT by Andy May)
So, my conclusion is that over 4,000 years or 160 generations, things improved and they tried, and tried, and tried again until it worked: people are smart.
…and animals actually could be pastured.
Starting 14,000 yag, the sparse, scraggly growth started getting thicker and slightly more abundant. It wasn’t very good, but is was much better than 16000 yag.
=> and clever people could keep various animals alive in a herding lifestyle.
Source: http://www.mochaexpress.com/Commentary/Elucidate/AgricultureBecamePossible/
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“There was no single factor, or combination of factors, that led people to take up farming in different parts of the world. In the Near East, for example, it’s thought that climatic changes at the end of the last ice age brought seasonal conditions that favored annual plants like wild cereals.”
http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110325/full/news.2011.184.html
http://www.des.ucdavis.edu/faculty/Richerson/AgOrigins_2_12_01.pdf
Nonetheless, we propose that much about the origin
of agriculture can be understood in terms of two
propositions:
Agriculture Wcas Impossible During The Last
Glacial. During the last glacial, climates were variable
and very dry over large areas. Atmospheric levels
of CO2 were low. Probably most important,
last-glacial climates were characterized by highamplitude
fluctuations on time scales of a decade or
less to a millennium. Because agricultural subsistence
systems are vulnerable to weather extremes,
and because the cultural evolution of subsistence
systems making heavy, specialized, use of plant
resources occurs relatively slowly, agriculture could
not evolve.
http://tuvalu.santafe.edu/~bowles/Holocene.pdf
Summary: The evolution of complex societies began when agricultural subsistence
systems raised human population densities to levels that would support large scale
cooperation, and division of labor. All agricultural origins sequences postdate 11,500
years ago probably because late Pleistocene climates we extremely variable, dry, and the
atmosphere was low in carbon dioxide. Under such conditions, agriculture was likely
impossible. However, the tribal scale societies of the Pleistocene did acquire, by geneculture
coevolution, tribal social instincts that simultaneously enable and constrain the
evolution of complex societies. Once agriculture became possible, a competitive ratchet
drove further improvements in subsistence and in scale of social organization . Those
societies that grew and became better organized were advantaged in individual wealth
and economic and military power, and tended to conquer, absorb, or be imitated by
smaller and less well organized societies. Internal competitors for power espousing useful
social innovations could deliver improved returns when their quest was successful.
Notwithstanding the ratchet, social complexity increased only slowly in the first half of
the Holocene and even afterwards few periods except the past two centuries saw changes
that were dramatic on the scale of individual lifetimes. We attempt a taxonomy of the
processes that regulate rates of institutional evolution, cause reversals of complexity
against the ratchet, and impose historical contingency on institutional evolution.i
SM, said pretty much the same thing using less words upthread. But we fundamentally agree.
Ag developed as a confluence of rising CO2, lowering weather variability (extremes) as the world approached the Holocene optimum, and resulting rising human populations.
Human ‘inventions’ of that time include: keeping the best for next year (teosinte to maize), preservation (beer/kimchi fermentation being a lesser example, salted/dried/smoked meats being major), plowing, paddying, copping (cutting tree tops to let many new ‘straight’ shoots grow from the trunk/rootstock for straight spears and arrows and construction ‘lumber’), fertilizer (Amerindians teaching Pilgrims to bury an alewive fish with each corn seed), sewage planning (Japanese honey buckets), and with the resulting food wealth then even primitive division of labor as evidenced in Mesopotamia, Egypt, and China over 6000ya.
weirdly who ever wrote this
A) clipped a quote
B) failed to spend more than 5 minutes seeing what the “consensus” was.
SM, I did. Moniker is quite clear. Sorry that you rejected a factual peace offering. Par for course?
did I read that correctly? what there were no or insufficient green plants before 13000 years ago?
this is hogwash
There was certainly vegetation to support the megafauna, but most of it was not susceptible to cultivation. Mammoths and rhinos could process steppe tundra flora, but not very well people.
Sea level rise also inundated such fertile areas as the broad valley where the English Channel now exists, and the Baltic and Adriatic Seas, Persian Gulf, South and East China Seas, etc. Later, the area around the previously much lower Black Sea was sunk by the rising Med pouring down into its depression.
Gabro,
One of the posts I linked to above pointed to evidence of intensive use of wild grains 23,000 years ago. They could not have been using these grains intensively if the plants did not grow perfectly fine.
For that matter, what did humans live on for two million years before the Holocene? It wasn’t just meat The human diet has probably included cooked plants and roots along with meat for several hundred thousand years at least.
Yes, in most environments, human diets did include plants. But they were gathered, not cultivated, let alone domesticated, as in agriculture.
The hand ax, a multipurpose tool which remained unchanged for about a million years, could be used to dig up roots and process vegetable fiber as well as to smash bone to get at the fatty marrow.
In any case, 25,000 years ago is long after the Eemian. And intensively using seed plants doesn’t necessarily mean even planting their seeds in optimum environments close to home, let alone selective breeding and field or seed bed cultivation.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1469-8137.2010.03441.x/pdf says that plants stop growing at 10-145 ppm depending on the kind of plant.
There are three different kinds of photosynthesis, two of which evolved to deal with an increasingly drier, cooler and CO2-starved world in the late Miocene. Most plants, including the majority of important crops, still use the old-fashioned, CO2-hungry C3 pathway. CAM and C4 plants can survive on much lower levels of carbon dioxide.
For some C4 plants, malnutrition actually sets in above 145 ppm, in the sense that they can’t flourish or in some cases reproduce before they actually starve to death.
CAM is just intermediate evolution between C3 and C4. All C4 plants retain and also use the C3 pathway. That is why maize (corn) still benefits from rising CO2. But as a C4, only about 1/3 of rice, a pure C3.
The lower limit for C3 plants ranges from 60 to 145 ppm according to the PDF I linked above.
13000 ybp, more CO2, more rain, warmer temperature, finding some edible plants, figuring it might be wise to grow them=agriculture begins. Not real complicated.
There is the argument that as a result of CO2 being steady for a few thousand years, the climate has been stable. This has allowed civilisations to determine what crops grow best where and to make the most of this. If temperature and rainfall patterns change quickly as predicted, then that also changes how efficiently we can grow things. Add to the mix an increasing global population and sea level rise reducing the amount of land available to sustain the population, then we could well be in serious trouble. Or I guess we can just hope the science is wrong.
So-called “climate science” is not science but politics. It’s agenda-driven computer modeling, not climatology.
Sea level rise is no different now than 200 years ago. Maybe less. Far more land has been opened up to farming thanks to more plant food in the air than could possibly be lost under any likely scenario of sea level rise.
More CO2 increase the efficiency of growing things. It has been a boon to the planet and humans in particular. Some part of the huge increase in food production since WWII is thanks to more CO2.
Gabro
No sea level rise ? Really? And you read that where?
Simon, do you have a reading comprehension problem?
Gabro said “sea level rise is no different now than 200 years ago”>
How does that translate into “no sea level rise?
Simon. Gabro did not say no SLR. He said no different than (no delta SLR). I disgree only because we do not have enough geostationary long record tide gauges to be sure that far back. But for sure, for the last century the statement is factually correct. Essay PseudoPrecision gives many amusing details.
Simon,
I said no change in the rate of sea level rise, or at least that’s what I tried to say.
In fact, sea level has been rising since the depths of the LIA 300 years ago, but we can’t get a good read on the rate until the 19th century. And of course the rate will vary. It would have slowed down during and after the Dalton Minimum, for instance.
There are proxies going back at least 300 years, and even actual data from the 18th century, but not AFAIK to form a global picture.
Salt marsh observations back 300 years:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012821X13006468
Liverpool since 1768:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/1999GL900323/full
Simon, the real delta SLR to 2100 is maybe 30 cm. No agriculture takes place that close to sea level due to salt poisoning, (OK, maybe in Bangladesh, where less productive but much more salt tolerant rice cultivars are being reintroduced in the Sundarbans.)
Temperature and rainfall are not changing quickly. Even if they did, the many main crop cultivars adapted over the centuries to diverse agricultural climate backgrounds simply change geolocation. What, you think all wheat is the same? All maize is the same? All chickens are the same? Then you must also believe all of the subspecies of Canis lupus sp. familiarensis (dogs) are the same. Dachshunds bear no resemblance to German Shepards.
The same principle applies to crop cultivars. Regards from a Wisconsin farmer who plants Wisconsin climate adapted cultivars in order to survive. And if Wisconsin climate changes, so will the planted cultivars.
“The same principle applies to crop cultivars. Regards from a Wisconsin farmer who plants Wisconsin climate adapted cultivars in order to survive. And if Wisconsin climate changes, so will the planted cultivars.”
You re a lucky man. Some who share this planet with you may not be. And when people are starving they may come looking for a country like yours. Just saying this stable climate we have enjoyed for the last few thousand years has allowed people to remain where they are. There are 156 million in Bangladesh who are going to have to find somewhere to live, probably within a century, two at most.
They have plenty of time, then. Does anyone expect nothing to ever change?
Bangladesh in its oceanside deltas, is rising. The mechanism is the same as in the Okavango delta.
Crispin in Waterloo June 26, 2016 at 12:20 am
“Bangladesh in its oceanside deltas, is rising. The mechanism is the same as in the Okavango delta.”
Are you saying they have nothing to worry about from this…..
Phew they will be so relieved. Quick get over there and tell them.
Also Simon, I think you can ease your worried mind on the impact of rising sea level on agricultural production.
Far more land will open up to production than would ever be flooded by rising seas.
“Far more land will open up to production than would ever be flooded by rising seas.”
Really? Where? Do you have another planet tin your pocket?
Simon,
Did you miss the part about higher CO2 making more land arable? Consider the Sahel. In the ’70s, there was much hand-wringing over desertification. But now, thanks to higher CO2, not only can livestock graze and browse there, but crop cultivation has expanded.
Besides of course, in a warmer world, growing seasons expand farther toward the poles.
Please do try and keep up with the science. It’s elementary.
If it gets warmer, more arable land will be available. It’s really not that difficult a concept.
Gabro
“Besides of course, in a warmer world, growing seasons expand farther toward the poles.”
Well we will have to wait and see if your growing season expansion is as good as you hope. In the meantime, I think it is you who needs to keep up with the science. There are already a number of traditionally harvested species that are suffering from the speed of change. And while farmers may be able to grown plants that adapt to the temp change, you can’t grow things if you have no water. Predictions are rainfall patterns are going to change. We are already seeing the rivers fed by the Himalayas are not providing the water to the farmers they used to. China is also reporting the same problem. However I am buoyed by your blind optimism. I mean I suppose there is a slight chance despite your opinion being contrary to the science, that you could be right. Let’s hope.
Your blind pessimism is totally fact-free.
The expansion of arable land is a fact, ie an observation. Much more land is now arable than during the LIA.
If you’ve got any actual science, please trot it out.
And earth has greened even more so in the past 35 years:
http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/carbon-dioxide-fertilization-greening-earth
If humanity hadn’t increased CO2 by accident, we would have had to do so on purpose.
“If humanity hadn’t increased CO2 by accident, we would have had to do so on purpose.”
Wrong again. It was no accident.
The hunter-gatherer native people in the dry centre encountered by early Australian explorers, genuine ‘ice age’ survivors (whose ancestors thousands of years earlier had wiped out the megafauna), baked cakes made from a rough flour from the seeds of a particular plant they called ‘nardoo’.
And then there is biology.
This idea would fit nicely into Patrick Moore’s speeches on CO2.
I have this opinion that there were advanced civilisations like us before the last Ice-age, maybe they didn’t get the chance that we are collectivity squandering now in this interglacial period, but it has attributed an accumulation of human knowledge to further our existence.
I have this realistic view of the past several hundred thousand years, that humans exactly like us existed, it is obnoxious for archaeologists to suggest that after the last Ice-age when a resettlement of humans where great Ice fields and glaciers a mile thick receded was the beginning of human civilization on earth, human evolution happened over millions of years and we have reached this stage of development before, what remains we dig up of the past tells a story, for example, have you ever seen a movie set in a period in the past? have you ever noticed that these period films use old run down castles and buildings as their back drop? these castles and buildings didn’t look like that, people didn’t scurry around in mud and foraging lettuce leaves for survival, they built and farmed for a calculated reason before and after the last Iceage, it is arrogant to believe human development has taken a leap forward and has achieved what no other human civilization has done in the past based on a few rusty swords, engravings and pots from a nomadic settlements after the last glacial period.
To increase Co2 levels in the atmosphere might very well be the smartest mankind ever did to Earth!
Mankind didn’t increase CO2 levels moron!!
Are you sure?
If we take up hydrocarbons (CxHx) from the deep ground and burn it – I´m quire sure the process will produce CO2. That should add CO2 to the atmosphere shouldn´t it?
No offence intended by calling you a Moron.
It is claimed that from the latter half of the 20th century CO2 levels from 350ppm to 400ppm is causing so called “global warming” right? in reality what this claim is saying is that a 50ppm increase in CO2 is going to change earths climate in a catastrophic way right? this is clearly untrue.
Of course humans use hydrocarbons from the deep ground. I want you to understand this scale, humans can not compete with earth when we compare human CO2 with that 50ppm globally, humans are responsible for at maximum 4% of that, the so called “catastrophe” is natural, which isn’t really a catastrophe if earth is greening at a cyclical peak and producing more Carbon Dioxide is it?
No problem – I simply ignore name calling – feel free to call me whatever the moderation filter will pass 🙂 . I will not have an opinion about the effect increased levels of CO2 in the atmosphere will have on temperature. I´m only claiming that mankind are adding CO2 to the atmosphere, I believe that will increase the level of CO2 in the atmosphere, and I believe plants would love us for doing that – if they had that ability – to love I mean. 🙂
For every finger that’s pointed at oneself as a “moron”, there are 3 pointed right back at themselves!
I know, I meant it in jest not as an insult. so un-bunch your panties ffs
Calling anyone a “moron” on public air-waves is way beyond any jest. Your sign-off flippancy suggests you just don’t get it.
Can we please maintain some dignity and personal courtesy, despite our differences of opinion.
In my defence It was a moronic thing to say “To increase Co2 levels in the atmosphere might very well be the smartest mankind ever did to Earth!”
Forgive my sense of humour, at least I have one.
And who by the way elected you as some sort of moral compass? f** away off and mind your own business…
You completely prove my point, esp’lly yr final flourish about ‘un-bunch your panties ffs’ (whatever ‘ffs’ means). I invite you to consider where — on an “A–holes Scale” — readers of your contributions might consider you to be.
Civility goes far …. But over & out on this as I’m not investing time in improving *your* capacity to communicate yr message effectively on a respectable forum such as this.
Earn your right to be heard and listened-to or be ignored as — dare I say it — a moron (which — in yr case — the evidence to date is convincing. evidence to hand).
Okay ffs, I’ll not call anyone else a “moron” ever again, happy?
I promise if it shuts you up, and what is really going on, you’re just trying to but-in on what is otherwise a fun conversation.
Everything that you’re suggesting is incorrect, I don’t live by you’re moral compass nor should I respect what ever you have to say, but I do take the time as a respectable person to do so out of politeness.
But anyway stop changing the subject Moron!!
Yes! we have a successor lol
(Okay ffs, no more calling any one a “moron” after that last one) deal?
*your lol
To be honest don´t know if temperature is the horse and CO2 level is the cart or if it is the other way around. And I don´t know how much of the increased level of CO2 in the atmosphere is due to humans. But gather that we are adding CO2 to the atmosphere.
I understand that, look at it this way, If human production of CO2 was comparable to a volcano right? how do you think this hypothetical volcano would measure up to all other volcanoes on earth?
Maybe this idea will help you understand the scale that we’re dealing with 😉
I understand figures – what are the numbers? This makes me think that It would have been nice to know how many tonnes of carbon are already at the surface, and in the atmosphere, and how many tonnes we have added – however, the plants seems to be quite hungry for it – I guess it won´t take long before they have absorbed any excess.
How would any amount of carbon dioxide produced by humans even compete with an entire planet?
In context CO2 is a tiny factor on this planet anyway, plant life loves more of it, more CO2 -> More plant life -> more animal life. All of this is a natural cycle and an aspect of biological life, and when life is flourishing, it shouldn’t be seen as a catastrophe.
This figure gives an idea about the involved amounts of Carbon.
http://bclearningnetwork.com/LOR/media/sc10/Science10/chapter_2/images/carbon_cycle.jpg
I realize that the figure does not contain units. The unit for stored carbon seems to be Giga tonnes. The carbon flow rates seems to be Giga tonnes of carbon per year.
@ur momisugly Ross King
I believe that “oneself” should have been “someone”?
“No offence intended by calling you a Moron.
It is claimed that from the latter half of the 20th century CO2 levels from 350ppm to 400ppm is causing so called “global warming” right?
No wrong.
@ur momisugly Mosher – ??? Isn´t that pretty much the claim by IPCC ?
@ur momisugly Sparks
I agree with Ross King – you should try to be more civilized. I appreciated the comment from Ross – and I did not like your reply to him. I think you should refrain from being rude.
Termites beat us by 25 million years.
http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/25/12024324/termite-farming-25-million-years-ago-before-humans?yptr=yahoo
“When it comes to farming, termites are OG. By searching through cliffs in southwestern Tanzania, researchers have discovered fossilized “fungus gardens” created by termites 25 million years ago, reports The Washington Post. And the scientists are not kidding about this — the gardens revealed that these ancient termites cultivated fungus by arranging them along a complex plan and feeding them pellets of plant material. Because of this, the researchers say this is the oldest physical evidence of agriculture on Earth.”
When did ants start herding aphids?
if it was stated last week in an article here Garbo would believe it.
You mean plant lice?
Only if there were evidence to support “it”.
What does it take for you to believe? Blind, unquestioning, childlike faith?
Me,
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071009212548.htm
You may call them plant lice if you wish. The ants just call them.
Look up ant-aphid farming or mutualism. Using “ant aphid farming” will yield 110,000 hits and the top one has this for a headline: “Herding Aphids: How ‘Farmer’ Ants Keep Control Of Their Food”
As I read this, I am breathing air in Ogden Utah that is equivalent to 18% O2 at sea level, just due to the elevation. What our bodies respond to is absolute concentration, i.e. the number of molecules hitting your lungs per second. I could have a pure oxygen atmosphere at low pressure and still suffocate. Hence, we developed partial pressure to express the absolute concentration in easily used terms. Interestingly, my old company would not allow us into an oxygen deficient atmosphere at work, but flying in an airplane (cabin pressure typically equivalent to 7000 feet elevation) violated that rule.
Agriculture started when man learned how to cultivate the great staple crops like wheat. It wasn’t to do with carbon dioxide, but the acquisition of human knowledge.
+1
This obvious point seems to getting ignored.
The conditions for agriculture to develop may have been in place for millennia, but so were the conditions for the invention of the wheel.
It’s a quantum leap but once it’s made and only once its made can the idea spread.
Absolutely zero evidence CO2 level had anything to do with it.
This is yet another faux reason to deny rapidly rising anthropocentric CO2 is a problem today.
Yes, the Amazon, Congo, Indonesia, etc. jungles were nearly utterly unchanged by all the Ice Ages. It had very little effect on these equatorial places. All the places north and south went through amazing, terrible changes, very severe changes.
Why “terrible” emsnews?
If rising CO2 caused global warming, the recent increase in CO2 would have caused more evaporation, which would result in more water vapor in the atmosphere. But that’s not happening:
http://clivebest.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/TPW-global.png
In fact, the rise in CO2 has had no measurable effect on global temperatures:
But CO2 has caused a very noticable effect on agricultural productivity:
And farmers know that CO2 enhances yields. Otherwise, they wouldn’t spend money to raise CO2 levels.
Here is a long term perspective. We see that current CO2 levels are still very low:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_cHhMa7ARDDg/SoxiDu0taDI/AAAAAAAABFI/Z2yuZCWtzvc/s1600/Geocarb%2BIII-Mine-03.jpg
Draw your own conclusions…
Hogwash to link grain production to the cause of rising CO2. Absolute garbage.
Oh look, the number of washing machines produces has followed the same curve, So has the incidence of colon cancer.
Well Tony, literally hundreds of peer review studies and thousands of experiments prove your statement to be “hogwash”
David I could have superimposed washing machine sales over the rising curve of atmospheric CO2 concentration and claimed there was causation. But obviously that would also be hogwash.
http://static.berkeleyearth.org/pdf/annual-with-forcing.pdf
DB
Moshers graph kinda says your “CO2 has no part in warming” opinion is rather wrong wouldn’t you say?
Agriculture started working 13,000 years ago, or 11,000 BC.
And the missing words are….”end of the last ice age”
No Dave, lets just ignore that and attribute all those advances to our good friend CO2.
The tropics were always warm enough to farm.
As anyone who actually has farmed knows, having seed, fertilizer, water, and photosynthesis is all that is really needed….
Unfortunately, the “photosynthesis” requires CO2
And yet farming arose in the subtropical and temperate zones.
The Pearl River Valley of south China is admittedly on the cusp of tropical.
History says that man has been on the Earth for approximately two million years. During 99% of the time he has lived as a hunter-gatherer. Only ten thousand years ago he started domesticating plants and animals and is living fewer than 300 years in an industrial society. Until today, life as hunter-gatherer has been the most successful and persistent adaptation to the environment that the human being has achieved. The capacity to differentiate between the dangerous plants and nourishing plants exists in animals than in humans.
Animals eat plants that surround them in a selective way. This enlightened humans and thus, before the consolidation of agriculture, the hunter gathered and used a wide range of species of plants for food and medicine. If one adds up the food value of these plants in typical gatherers diet, this diet is more balanced in proteins and carbohydrates than the diet of most of the modern population in modern societies. Thus, the origin of agriculture was a gradual transition starting with the planting of few seeds of the most useful plants in the areas surrounding the gatherers’ camp. As agriculture establishes, the struggle of humans against certain plants, the specialization and selection of plants, started within the framework of his environment in terms of soil and climate. Later he started conserving some good seed for the planting in the next season. Here he not only included food crops but also fruit crops and also domesticated animal for meat and milk as well as draught animal in agricultural operations and established agriculture technologies for different regions based on soil and climate. Here humans have established system of farming under variable climate conditions that minimizes the weather based risk. For this purpose collected and stored seeds for all seasons and variable climate conditions.
That is, prior to 1960, the farmers used indigenous technologies evolved over hundreds and thousands of years experience and passed it on to generation after generation. These technologies were weather & soil driven farming systems that include crops & cropping patterns – intercropping, mixed cropping, agricultural practices – crop rotation, land & water management practices, traditional seed, farmyard manure, and draught animal based implements, etc. This technology was highly successful and sustainable as they included animal husbandry – horticulture fruit crops and thereby the farmyard manure as fertilizer, bulls as draught animal, etc into agriculture system with which the cost of production was low and thus the risk in agriculture was low. Therefore it is called “no suicides” technology. These are said to be “Golden Days” in the history of farming. No pollution, no worry about seed adulteration, fertilizer adulteration as they used the good grain as seed and compost of farmyard manure as well green manure as fertilizer. However, the yields were low but the quality of food was excellent & and thus provide healthy – nutritious diet to people as well the fodder to animal. Timely crop management is the mantra for the success in this system of agriculture.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
Bulls as draught animals? I don’t think so.
foxhuntingman — Bulls were used and are in use as drought animals. Drought animal is not drought related animal. Bulls are used to till the land, known as drought animal.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
Bulls can be used, but draft oxen are often steers.
After around 1960 with green revolution technology [GRT-1], the Indian agriculture has grown leaps and bounds though in quantity but failed to achieve the quality of traditional food for humans and as well to animal through fodder. Unfortunately international agencies including UN agencies are giving importance to quantity over quality of food. The technology refers to high yielding seeds clubbed with chemical inputs [fertilizers & pesticides, insecticides, herbicides, etc] & irrigation. This was successful as after Independence the government invested major part of budgetary share towards increasing irrigation sources like big dams. Now this reached around 40% of the cultivated area. High yielding seeds technology was based on few years experience of few scientists interwoven with vested interests of multinational companies that created new problems hither to unknown to farmers that lead use of chemicals in the crop management by which cost of production jumped several fold. Entered government’s input subsidy, a huge component. However, government failed to support the traditional inputs systems.
The use of chemical inputs reduced the quality in food and created bad impact on environment, this lead modern environmental movements world over. That is, this technology was found to be more dangerous on long-term, over the short-term gains; that destroyed the environment drastically like degradation & salinization of the soil, health hazards to humans, animal & plant life along with water, air, soil & food pollution. They in turn increased the drug manufacturing industries – through which pollution –, through which hospitals – through which pollution – through which more health hazards, turning in to a vicious circle. When this technology was introduced nobody knew that this technology is going to create such environmental catastrophe, but scientists involved in this research received Noble Prizes and Awards and Rewards. All these factors are not accounted under food production costs. To counter this multinational companies with the tacit support from the Western Governments compelled UN to divert the attention from environment to global warming through IPCC, a political body created in 1988/89.
Even with all these ill effects, the yield growth curve has flattened after 1980-85 as there was no improvement in seed technology for increasing the yield or bringing the farm yields to the research station yield levels. The yield of Genetically Modified Seed is limited to the traditional high yielding seed only. The technology has no yield increasing potential. They also work under the same GRT-1 scenario only. Thus, science & technology, though indicates a media for sustainable development on short-term basis with disastrous consequences on environment became unsustainable proposition on long term basis and on the contrary the traditional technologies were found to be sustainable on long-term basis. Around 30-50% of production is going as waste as there are no sufficient storage facilities and timely transport facilities. That means, we are producing too much and wasting it at the cost of natural resources and energy. That means government talk on food security and thus showed more interest in pushing production but not storage and distribution to needy in time. This encouraged the politicians-bureaucrats-businessmen nexus to look at ways and means of hording and illegal export and thus raise the prices in the market with huge profits and thus create artificial inflation. Even in USA, the excess production is dumped in to sea to protect the farmers’ interests. Thus, resources are wasted to that extent.
The mono crop culture of GRT-1 with new high yielding varieties grown under chemical inputs reduced the animal husbandry hither to play a prominent role at household food & nutrition security as this fodder is not a good diet. While calculating the food production gains we rarely account this loss.
In Andhra Pradesh a state in India, the traditional paddy under irrigation yielded 1300 kg/ha with the high yielding seed the yield has increased by 500 kg/ha [that is, total of 1800 kg/ha] and by adding chemical inputs the yield level has increased by 2000 kg/ha [that is, total of 3800 kg/ha] under the farmers fields. The research yield is 5000 to 6000 kg/ha but the present average yields of farmers field are 2600 – 2800 kg/ha. This shows there is a large yield gap between research station and farmers fields. Till to date scientists haven’t tried to fix this gap. The main beneficiaries here are the chemical inputs manufacturers with huge government subsidies; illegal exporters. To monopolize seed industry under patent laws, MNCs introduced Genetically Modified [GM] Technology in to improved local crop varieties [Reddy, 2003]. To make it effective, the vast germplasm of native genetic resources of different crops were put in to their Gene Banks [Reddy 2000]. Now they are systematically dumping GM seeds on farmers with the tacit support from their PR groups. This has disastrous effect on farmers in developing countries, more particularly in India. This lead increased cost of production and thus, this created boom in the sale of adulterated seed-fertilizers; and thus leading to farmers’ suicides. After seeing the phenomenal success, now, they are planning to monopolize even the paddy & maize seed business under the disguise of hybridization and genetically modification hither too was not in the MNCs clutches.
The success of GRT-1 was possible with irrigation [Reddy, 2016b], as the diffusion of technology was possible only through irrigation. The irrigation potential was created with huge government subsidy. Because of this the rain-fed agriculture has not recorded the success as that was recorded in irrigated agriculture. That means most of the subsidies have gone to irrigated agriculture. Thus, the gulf between the irrigated agriculture and rain-fed agriculture is increasing with the passing of time with cost of production going up and up. Thus, with the GRT-1 the major sufferers are the small and marginal rain-fed agriculture farmers as the cost of cultivation increasing day by day with income coming down. Farmers’ suicides are growing with cash crop farming – GRT-1 is mono crop technology and could not withstand vagaries of monsoon unlike traditional intercropping or mixed cropping systems along with crop rotation practice. In India around 60% of the cultivated land is still at the mercy of “Rain God“. With the high costs, the rain-fed agriculture became an uneconomical venture. Farmers started migrating to urban centres for greener pastures. This created another problem to governments in creating infrastructure facilities at huge cost in urban centers. However, Yesterday Indian Prime Minister as part of launching of Smart City projects stated that “Planned urbanization can mitigate poverty”. The whole objective is to put agriculture in the hands of corporate and encourage GMOs. The present Indian government is pro-businessmen and anti-environment.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
Ten thousand years ago +/- 10,000 years, a few discontented females got together and decided to go Vegan. They withheld sex supply to males enforce their ideas and so vegetable agriculture flourished by dictate.
Nicknamed “United Naggers” they continued group pressure for centuries. Their demonstrations of discontent were strident as they herded dinosaurs over high cliffs as well as causing widespread dinosaur suicide.
There is ample contemporaneous evidence of the strength and durability both the Naggers activity and its Vegan derivative. Historic restoration of large scale events is more credible when strong drivers such as sex and reproduction are involved
……
This of course is speculative nonsense, so it is appropriate for it to be here, comfortably amid other speculation with little empirical support.
Does it matter?
Geoff
United Naggers
===========
the “N” word men truly fear!
On a related subject, if a climate model predicts that increasing CO2 levels in the atmosphere from 270 to 1000 will reduce biomass rather than increase biomass, this seems to be evidence that the model is flawed and should not be considered for use in determining policy towards CO2 emissions.
Let me point to a 2006 book that makes the same claim that the author is making, albeit with much more detail.
Well spotted, Ms. Corwin.
w.
Plus many.
Willis,
Your posts are great! Keep doing them!
The book you point out, like most “ivory tower”, CYA ones has “could”, “whenever it occurred”, etc. It absolutely seems close to “correct” but the error margin is huge: “about 9000 years” is a cop-out.
My thesis is simple:
direct map from the Greenland CO2 estimates to the impact on the clever, wily humans.
It has an interesting management topic of the scenario of how the tribes stumbled on growing things, once they actually would grow with any sort of vigor.
It was a very, very hard life and every little bit let the kids live.
Having grown up on a farm, I am very amused by the naivety of the city folk.
When I created the research lab for Intel, my biggest problem was “guys” sure of themselves as they wandered in the dark and CYA’ed with wishy washy statements…
and then expected me to “look up” to their “superior” silliness.
Thanks for the reply and for your kind words, Susan. As someone who grew up on a 280-acre cattle ranch in the middle of nowhere, I share your amusement with city folk. In particular the “if it gets warmer we’ll starve” mantra drives me nuts, because it assumes that farmers worldwide are too stupid to change with changing weather … grrr. I describe people who think farmers are stupid as folks that might have used a shovel but never sharpened a shovel …
What I liked about the book that I referenced was that it confirmed what I suspected, that the C3 plants were the first to be domesticated. This, of course, supports your hypothesis.
I was entranced by your throwaway line of “when I created the research lab for Intel” … one hesitates to ask for the back story, but nothing ventured nothing gained, I’ll ask …
w.
Good discussion on a rather weak study. 12K years ago was the end of the last Ice Age, and temperature/growing seasons had a great deal to do with farming becoming practical, as I don’t think people have changed all that much in that short a period. The other problem is trusting archaeology too much, as decent dates derive only from work done since ~1950, a relatively short time. The other problem is that archaeology tends to be done in select areas, either close to the scientists home or in deserts exposing the appropriate eras.
Too many problems to itemize but a few:
1) CO2 increases are supposed here to have been simultaneously advantageous for all cultigens but not for weeds. (Weeds would include encroaching rain forest.)
2) There is no general botanical evidence for plant population variability due to CO2 variability in the Holocene (or whenever). (Do tree rings suddenly become thicker or more dense?)
3) There was no cross cultural simultaneity in the evolution of agriculture.
4) Too many more important factors, like:
a) Changing climate
b) Extinction of human predators
c) Better weaponry (bow and arrow), for improved hunting
The Sahara was grassland 11ky as well as much of the Middle East. Odds are agriculture evolved only once and by accident. In any case it would have required a relatively sedentary culture, but one not yet civilized, as agriculture is a prerequisite for cities. And of course no irrigation would have been involved initially. Agriculture must have been discovered where rain was sufficient for the cultigen involved. Dropped seeds–return later–grain growing. Some smart woman had to put two and two together. And if the Tiwi islanders are any indication, the first planters still didn’t know where babies came from, especially if animals had not yet been domesticated.
But they may have been–something allowed the first farmers to be sedentary. And modern pastoral nomads hold a symbiotic relationship with city folk, not enjoyed by the first herders.
Humans didn’t start planting seeds when mammoths went extinct–rather the Clovis hunters went extinct together with their prey. Crediting CO2 for the evolution of agriculture is like blaming modern species disruption on global warming.
So should this thesis be dismissed out of hand? Of course, until some evidence is produced to back it up. –AGF
Well, that is an interesting set of conjectures that don’t seem to have any point.
You might start by relating them to your personal farming experience and to your personal management experience. 160 generations is a long time for a tribe to struggle to survive when food is scarce.
More reliable moisture for plant survival & generally warmer for plant growth happened; setting a “special” CO 2 threshold as the measure for when plant growth is worthwhile is simplistic. Rainfall patterns changed as cold/dry epoch relented; getting humans to cultivate beyond plant husbandry (transplanting close to water &/or protecting wild pocket from hooves) needed reliable seasonal moisture.
Darn. They promised me it was for the alcohol. Another great theory shot to h3ll.
CO2 and the advent of farming are not connected. primitive peoples ate what they later grew before they farmed and the plants existed before they farmed them. the entire CO2 as a destroyer of the earth is fictitious and articles that try to make inferences of correlation between man and CO2 are equally fictitious.
I am disappointed in some of the articles have of late. like all things conservative the left tries to infiltrate and convert. they have been very successful on other blogs. I hope this one does not allow the parasites to metastasize.
Interesting thesis with a lot of good ideas. But overall, mistaken, probably because water was a more powerful plant control than CO2 during glacial times and the early Holocene.
Precipitation was the main control on vegetation both in peri-glacial and tropical environments, while the limited availability of CO2 probably acted as a secondary control. The effect of aridity was amplified by the impact the lower partial pressure of CO2 upon stomata.
I suggest you add to your hypothesis the effect of evapo-transpiration on plant physiology, mainly stomata. Also, you should consider the differing responses of C3 and C4 plants.
While the hypothesis would be slightly more complex, it would explain much more.
Aridity continued to limit plant productivity long after CO2 had risen substantially from its glacial-period lows. In temperate latitudes, the return of the forests occurred both as a result of temperature increase and decline in aridity.
Agriculture is too complex for a single factor theory. The first attempt at domestication of wheat in southern Turky was not sustained because interrupted by the Younger Dryas which was both colder and drier.
I think the Jomon culture might be more relevant in support of your hypothesis than the middle eastern cultures.. As I understand in the Jomon areas of Japan there was no field agriculture.
A good general text for your purpose would be The Holocene, by Neil Roberts. I consulted my copy before writing this, which is why I have not dismissed your attempt to claim increased CO2 as a factor in plant recovery during the Holocene, a recovery that is continuing as CO2 partial pressure continues to rise.
For tropical Africa, L.C. Beadle’s Inland Waters of Tropical Africa has a few interesting passages, including a reference to sand dunes invading the Congo Basin.
Thanks for those insights, Frederick. I had not thought about the interplay between ice age drought and stomata. The problem for plants is that when they breathe they lose water. When CO2 levels are low, they have to open their stomata wider to bring in more CO2 … which leads to greater water loss.
In other words, low CO2 levels exacerbate the damaging effects of aridity. I knew that, but I hadn’t considered what it meant regarding ice ages. Very interesting.
Best regards,
w.
Hi Willis Eschenbach, – The elevated (relatively speaking) CO2 effect on leaf stomata is a frequently mentioned detail; yet usually considered only in a linear sense (less open = more better). If look at the stomata there is something else important to consider than just how open they are.
In epochs when ambient CO2 was “low” the plants changed the physical size of their stomata so that each stomata was smaller than under “high” C02 epochs. This gave plants 2 things we overlook when interpret experimental high (~ 700 ppm) CO2 results.
By having smaller stomata more of the total # of stomata can arrayed in a leaf & also the smaller the stomata the more efficient diffusion of CO2 becomes; it is another plant adaptation to low CO2. On the other hand, our experiments with high CO2 are using plants whose stomata have been transitioning to larger stomata since CO2 has been rising; the physical attributes of our experimental stomata are simply not the same.
Smaller stomata, by being more numerous, also occasion relatively high water transpiration up & out; but the plant trade off was more photo-synthesis at low CO2. Meaning at low CO2 + small stomata the greenery could have been quite as impressive as the greenery we see in enrichment experiments.
By virtue of this stomata adaptation (smaller/numerous) the plant was more responsive (via hormone abscisic acid) in real time to fluctuating growing conditions (moisture/temperature/light) & thus small stomata in low CO2 improved ability to juggle available water in ways that let it optimize carbon fixation over it’s growth period (not just a linear relation to days’ water transpiration). The size of stomata & their density changed from over ~1,200 sq. micrometer size 400- 350 million years ago (high CO2) & low density/mm2, then dropping to smaller of ~ 500 sq. micrometer size 350 – 300 million years ago (low CO2) with a concurrent increase in density/mm2 (~ double than before), then rose to ~1,000 sq.micrometer in size with rising CO2 300-200 million years ago & more density/mm2 again, then when again high CO2 kept rising in size 200- 100 million years ago to ~4,000 micrometer size & density stayed low/mm2, then 100 million years ago as CO2 fell again the size of the stomata fell back to ~ 500 sq. micrometer size & stomata density/mm2 started to increase (but not as high density nor small as 350- 300 million years ago during earlier low CO2 epoch).
The preceding numbers are my general interpolated comparisons & there is of course variable ranges for different plants. The different stomatal densities in the same epoch (i.e: when CO2 either high or low) also create a spectrum of different plants, with what stomatal size & density constellation, are capable of accessing how much CO2 (in mol/mt. 2/sec.). Source for those wanting better data resolution see free full text online Fig. 5: “Maximum leaf conductance driven by CO2 effects stomatal size and density over geologic time”, by P. Franks