Traditional forms of agriculture: Unexpected degree of diversity, time-honored principles

Science Daily, which never gets around to saying what the title of the book is. Nor could I find it from other sources: The general public often regards traditional agriculture in the light of principles emphasizing self-sufficiency, or even sheer survival, as opposed to cash cropping, manual labour as opposed to an extreme level of mechanization, extensive practices as opposed to intensification.

….However, this conventional, rather simplistic image touches only the tip of the iceberg of the enormous diversity of traditional agricultural systems that exist. They may now make up only a tiny proportion of the farmed surface area of the world, but they are remarkable in their complexity and their ability for adaptation to restricted and harsh environments. Two IRD [Institut de Recherche Pour le Développement ] researchers, working jointly with scientists from both national and international organizations, made highly detailed surveys of these agricultural methods, some dating back several millennia.

They have now published a book setting out the most extraordinary examples. This work, with its cultural and historical flavour, is more than just a straightforward selection of ancestral farming techniques. It also evokes how such forms of agricultural are embedded within each society that elaborated them.

The modern agriculture that is sometimes taken to be the “conventional” one is daily gaining ground over so-called traditional or extensive forms of farming practised for several thousand years by rural populations who in some cases live on the fringes of industrial society. These forms of agriculture are often highly idiosyncratic and take up only a tiny portion of the Earth’s total cultivated surface. Yet they stand out owing to their ability to adapt to a constantly changing natural environment and to the diversity of farming practices they adopt.

…It remains, however, that the right level of adaptation achieved between the environment, humans and a particular type of agriculture does not always last. Indeed the environment never ceases to change under human activity in general and agriculture in particular. Persistence of these techniques over time also comes up against population growth and structural changes in the societies that set them in place. It is therefore difficult to transpose the practices involved. They are based at any given moment entirely on a balance between a type of environment and a type of society. But in spite of their extraordinary nature and the fact that they constitute only a tiny proportion of all agricultural systems, they still stand as a source of inspiration and lessons for the development of agriculture….

"A mule and a plow--Resettlement Administration--Small loans give farmers a new start" from Bernarda Bryson: "Bernarda Bryson Shahn, Depression Era Prints" at the James A. Michener Art Museum, PA, 2005. Wikimedia Commons