Old Egyptian agriculture - Painter of the burial chamber of Sennedjem - The Yorck Project: 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei. DVD-ROM, 2002.
Agriculture under biodiversity's perspective and the monoculture's losses to humanity "The emergence of agriculture in the Neolithic era was a decisive step in the civilization process, when the human species ceased to be nomadic because it had another source of food besides hunting and collecting: growing plants. It can be said that the earliest form of land use and plant cultivation is more similar to current agroforestry systems than to agricultural monoculture (Hart, 1996). Polyculture systems emerged independently in different regions of the planet, with the earliest records of prehistory, in the monsoon region of Asia, where the production of fruits, nuts, herbs and other
perennial plants occurred in a sustainable manner, interfering in the composition of the original vegetation - including the introduction of exotic species (Douglas, 1992, 2003). This activity is called 'forest gardening', and refers to the ancestral religious concept of the Garden of Eden (Bell, 2005), biblical reference to the place of anthropic nature where mankind was created, also existing in the mythology of other peoples. The establishment of the 'huertos familiares (family orchards)' that have gathered great diversity of species in Central America for many centuries, as well as the formation of 'terra preta de Ăndio (black Indian soil)' in the Amazon Basin (Glaser et al., 2002), were events related to this practice. This diversity of species at the beginning of the cultivation of the plants by the Homo sapiens is more linked to the concept of horticulture than to agriculture with extensive monocultures. The term horticulture comes from the Latin 'hortus' (garden) and 'culture' (cultivation) (Bailey, 1904), while the term agriculture comes from the Latin 'ager' (field) and 'culture' (cultivation). Horticulture usually has a smaller scale, with a higher concentration of inputs, labor and information than agriculture; In addition, horticulture can encompass a wide range of varieties in the same area, including fruit trees and herbaceous plants, while in agriculture the usual concentration is in a single variety.
With the secular status of 'the art of plant cultivation' (Tukey, 1962), horticulture currently comprises science, technology and business related to the intensive cultivation of plants for human use, and encompasses important and diversified economic activities, such as forestry, the production of greenhouse vegetables and the cultivation of vines, as well as floriculture and landscaping, etymologically referenced. Historical affinities approach edible and medicinal plants of the ornamental plants, since the processes of domestication occurred together for several vegetable groups in areas close to the dwellings of the ancestral peoples. In these places the cultural practices were similar, and the spaces simultaneously covered gardens and orchards, where aromatic plants, natural fibers and dyes were also kept. These cultural practices started to provide inputs (water, organic matter and nutrients) and services (mainly the protection of crops against sunlight, the herbivores and the invasive plants), and made possible the selection of characteristics of human interest, such as fast growth and the organ growth. Leaves, fruits, seeds and edible roots larger than those found in wild species were selected on the fertile soils of the organic dumps of these ancestral communities (Vavilov, 1937)."* So, the original agriculture was not the monoculture of wheat and grains in the crescent fertile of Mesopotamia 9,000 years BC, as many think. The original agriculture comes from the forest gardening, much older and more related with permaculture
(Holmgren and Mollison, 1978), with a horticultural approach and much higher biodiversity indexes.
Biodiversity and agrobiodiversity losses, the genetic erosion process, impedes adaptive responses to stressful environments (Bijlsma and Loeschcke, 2011), like deforested and semi-arid areas, and the whole planet Earth affected by the climatic changes. Very low biodiversity indexes is an important argument against GMOs, genetic engineered cultivars and synthetic growing for monocultures in extensive areas, as have been occurring in South America and is starting in Africa now. In Brazil, monoculture of soybeans, corn and cotton are rotated and breaking records of productivity - but with GMOs and synthetic fertilizers, in areas were tropical forests or savannah with high biodiversity indexes were destroyed. And the high productivity is attracting more and more people (including US, European and Chinese citizens) to buy new areas. Most of the still cheap forested farms are burned and receive grass seed to keep the cattle during 4 or 5 years - after that the Brazilian owner can use tractors to prepare the land for soybeans, what makes the value of the land sometimes 50 times higher than the cost of forested areas. Monoculture business with GMOs / genetic engineered cultivars and synthetic fertilizers are quickly stimulating the destruction of native vegetation in Brazilian Amazonian and Savannah (Cerrado) biomes
- and this commodities exportation is the main income of dollars for the Brazilian government nowadays. Humanity needs grains and meat, there are hungry people and population growth. But the synthetic agriculture is not the best solution - there are the natural megadiversity and the salvageable old agrobiodiversity to be extensively used by traditional breeding and permaculture practices. New genetically modified / genetic engineered cultivars are promoting the lost of old cultivars and traditional knowledge, beyond the destruction of natural vegetation for monocultures. Modern agricultural community, governments and investors must look for the original agriculture concepts, with higher genetic diversity indexes, and their opportunities for the future market of the new generations. There are too many abandoned areas, the low productivity caused by new cultivars that demand too much synthetic fertilizers and the opportunity to use drones and the new Ag technologies to make feasible the production of old cultivars that have full marketing nowadays. Mainly with a beautiful sustainable history traceable. Pedro Nahoum - Botanist and CEO of Botanica Pop Ltd., a Brazilian company specialized in CAM plants classical breeding and sustainable agriculture. pedronahoum@gmail.com +5521996735855
Posted on May 10, 2017 on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/agriculture-under-biodiversitysperspective-losses-humanity-nahoum?published=t *The first eight paragraphs of this text are an excerpt (translated by the author) of the 40th chapter, wrote by Pedro Nahoum, Cláudio Nicoletti and Roberto Romão (Nahoum et al., 2015) of the book : 'Recursos Fitogenéticos: A base da agricultura sustentável no Brasil' Edition: v.1, Publisher: Editora UFV, 2015. Editor: Renato Ferraz de Arruda Veiga & Manoel Abílio de Queiróz, ISBN: 97885-7269-537-4 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283463113_Recursos_Fito geneticos_A_base_da_agricultura_sustentavel_no_Brasil References BAILEY, L.H. (1904). Cyclopedia of American Horticulture. New York: The MacMillan company. BELL, G. (2005). The Permaculture Garden. London: Chelsea Green Publishing. BIJLSMA, R. & LOESCHCKE, V. (2012). Genetic erosion impedes adaptive responses to stressful environments. Evolutionary Applications 5(2):117-29 DOUGLAS, J.M. (2003). The Forest Farms of Kandy: And Other Gardens of Complete Design. Exeter, UK: Ashgate studies in environmental policy and practice.
DOUGLAS, J.M. (1992). The Forest-Garden Farms of Kandy, Sri Lanka. Rome : Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. GLASER, B.; LEHMANN, J. & ZECH, W. (2002). Ameliorating physical and chemical properties of highly weathered soils in the tropics with charcoal - a review, 35 Biology and Fertility of Soils 219, 220. HART, R.A. (1996) Forest Gardening: Cultivating an Edible Landscape. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green. TUKEY S.N. & H.B. (1962). The role of horticulture in science and society. Keynote address to the XVIth International Horticultural Congress, Brussels VAVILOV, N.I. (1937). Los centros genético-geográficos de las plantas cultivadas, Revista de la Facultad de Agronomía, Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Argentina, Buenos Aires, 23: 6594.