Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
6
T
RADITIONAL
F
OOD
P
RODUCTION
Humans as Solar Farmers
Rain in the village must be plentiful.
I dream of fragrance with the rice-plants full.
Since Heaven's impartial in its overflow
Of grace, strong reeds and tares will likewise grow.
Men find such growths unwelcome from the harm
They always do those who work a farm.
Hence none of the good villagers can shirk
In seasonable tasks of weeding work,
Piling tares by the river in defense
Of cleaner crops. Grain is life's sustenance.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Whatever grows will rise in mad confusion
And toil must guide the crop to its conclusion.
Du Fu (712-770), ''Directing Farmers''
dency toward weedy disorder and producing orderly
harvests. An ecologist might note the emphasis on the
separation of crops from other phytomass and on grains
as key crops as a perfect description of farming as a
manipulated ecosystem inimical to the maintenance of
species diversity. An anthropologist might focus on the
inevitability of collective participation in seasonally
demanding labor alternating with periods of extended
rest. Definitions of agriculture abound, and so do expla-
nations of its origins (Reed 1977; Pryor 1983; Cowan
and Watson 1992; Bellwood 2004). Arguing about the
relative importance of individual drivers is counterpro-
ductive; such a complex process has no single cause,
only a history with its many interdependent interactions
(Rindos 1984).
Consequently, it is important to reject the idea of agri-
culture as a result of an invention (G. F. Carter 1977) as
well as the notion of agricultural revolution (Childe
1951). The well-documented evolutionary nature of the
Du Fu's verse defines agriculture very well. On the
most abstract level it can be seen as a prescient descrip-
tion of negentropic effort: agriculture as periodically
strenuous energy investment combating the natural ten-
