Agricultural Revolutions There are 3 of them

Before Agricultural Societies NOMADIC: Hunting and Gathering Societies

What is a Revolution and how can you have a farming revolution? So then What? A revolution is any fundamental change or reversal of conditions, a great and sometimes violent change or innovation Encourage brainstorm to produce definition before introducing this version. Discuss different types of revolution.

The Neolithic Revolution

The Neolithic Revolution (8000BCE-3500BCE) Humans begin to slowly domesticate plant and animal stocks in SW Asia. Agriculture requires nomadic peoples to become sedentary.

Costs & Advantages of Agriculture The Neolithic Revolution Costs & Advantages of Agriculture Advantages Costs Steady food supplies Greater populations Leads to organized societies capable of supporting additional vocations (soldiers, managers, etc.) Heavily dependant on certain food crops (failure = starvation) Disease from close contact with animals, humans, & waste Can’t easily leave sites

Agriculture Slowly Spreads: What do you notice about the core areas? The Neolithic Revolution Agriculture Slowly Spreads: What do you notice about the core areas? What is life like if all plants and animals had to remain in their indigenous locations? How would the world have developed differently? Similar? Choose a topic/product/idea- what does their “Spread” Map look like now(2010)?

Sedentary Agriculturalists Dominate The Neolithic Revolution Sedentary Agriculturalists Dominate High starch diets slowly allow Sedentary populations to grow. First plow invented c.6000BCE; crop yields grow exponentially by 4000BCE. Pop. grows from 5-8 million to 60-70 million. Eventually agricultural populations begin to spread out, displacing or assimilating nomadic groups; farming groups grow large enough for advanced social organization.

The Open-field System Cooperative plowing Conserved the quality of land Balanced distribution of good land Farmers were part of a “team” Gleaning The Open-field System: - England was divided into a number of fields which surrounded a village - 1/3 left fallow - further divided into rectangular sections called furlongs -Furlongs were divided into narrow 1 acre strips - Certain pasture and forest were set aside as common land

The Neolithic Revolution First Towns Develop Catal Huyuk Modern Turkey First settled: c. 7000BCE Jericho Modern Israel First settled: c. 7000BCE

So what came after the Neolithic Revolution? Oh Yeah! The actual Agricultural Revolution. Encourage brainstorm to produce definition before introducing this version. Discuss different types of revolution.

Agricultural Revolution 15th and 18th Century Farming - 1st Picture: Peasants ranking and cutting hay in the 15th Century 2nd Picture: Farming Methods in Early 18th Century Very little change Common land still unenclosed and outside the village in the 18th century Economy of Europe was agrarian Used the three-field system: 1/3 of the land left idle to restore fertility

All right,so there was going to be a great change... What exactly was this great change? Great changes, you mean - and innovations All right CHANGES.. Explain that there was not just the one change. First of all, there was enclosure, then there was the new machinery such as the seed drill and horse plough, not to mention marling and selective breeding…..

Enclosures? This meant enclosing the land. The open fields were divided up and everyone who could prove they owned some land would get a share. Dividing the open land into small fields and putting hedges and fences around them. Everyone had their own fields and could use them how they wished. Encourage own research of the enclosures, what it meant both good and bad.

Enclosure Before AFTER Each landowner received a single piece of property No common lands

Selective Breeding? Some farmers such as Robert Bakewell and the Culley brothers concentrated on selective breeding. This meant only allowing the fittest and strongest of their cattle, sheep, pigs and horses to mate. You can tell how successful they were: In 1710 the average weight for cattle was 168 Kg by 1795 - it was 363 Kg Find pictures of the animals they bred – do they look healthy by today’s standards, what does it tell us about how they thought of their achievements that they had portraits painted.

What other new ideas were there? Marling Crop rotation Seed drill Publicity New ploughs and hoes Give a brief explanation of each of these points and encourage own research of them

Publicity?! Yeah, books were written on farming. The Board of Agriculture was set up and Arthur Young, the new secretary, went round the country recording the progress of the revolution and others could read his report to find out more. Agricultural shows with competitions were held and people could exchange ideas and see the latest things.

Your tasks 1. Find out about crop rotation, what were the crops and how did they rotate? Who had the idea? 2. Agricultural shows - who had the idea? How did he encourage his tenants to use the new fangled ideas? 3. What is marling? 4. Jethro Tull - who is he and why is 1701 significant? 5. New ploughs and hoes? How were they different? 6. What is gleaning? 7. How did farming change between 1701 and 1850? These questions can be used to plan the final question, treat the final question as an essay if time otherwise summary paragraph

Some Answers a. Crop Rotation g. Scientific Breeding English gentleman farmer Viscount Charles “Turnip” Townsend Alternating grain crops: wheat and barley, with soil enriching crops: turnips and clovers. No longer had to leave land fallow g. Scientific Breeding 1725-1795 Selective breeding of animals Produced more and better animals Produced more milk and meat Leciestershire breed of sheep Increased weight of marketed cattle

So first was Neolithic and then it was Agricultural, now what? Ohhhhh….. Green Revolution Encourage brainstorm to produce definition before introducing this version. Discuss different types of revolution.

THE GREEN REVOLUTION (The Third Agricultural Revolution) Starts in 19th Century And Biotechnology THE GREEN REVOLUTION 1

GREEN REVOLUTION Since 1950’s A complex of improvements which greatly increased agricultural production Adoption of new, improved varieties of grains Application of better agricultural techniques Irrigation Mechanization Use of fertilizer Use of pesticides Since 1950’s Agricultural output outpaced population growth even without adding additional cropland 6

8

“Green Revolution” benefits Core exports high-yield “miracle” seeds Needed oil-based fertilizers, pesticides Asian rice crop up 66% in 1965-85 Favored areas with good soil, weather

“Green Revolution” drawbacks Favored farmers who could afford seeds, inputs, machines, irrigation Indebted farmers lost land, moved to cities New “monocrops” lacked resistance to disease/pests Environmental contamination, erosion Oriented to export “cash crops,” not domestic food

Biotechnology continues to change agriculture. I guess during the Green Revolution, biotechnologies started to advance agriculture.

Biotechnology: Using organisms to… Make or modify products Improve plants or animals Develop new microorganisms Crossing natural divides between species Not just crossbreeding

Genetic Engineering

14

Increase pest resistance Grow crops in new areas Biotechnology benefits in agriculture Increase yields Increase pest resistance Grow crops in new areas

Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) Consumer concerns began in Europe, now in U.S. too

Biotechnology drawbacks in agriculture High costs (available to few) Monocrops have less tolerance to disease Possible health effects Contamination of wild crops (“superweeds”) Corporate patents on life forms

San Francisco Farmers’ Market

Minneapolis airport flower stand