72
local deforestation and irrigation, it also led to fundamental changes in society and
the way humans segregated tasks for greater efficiency. Though successful innovation examples can be found in every single aspect of agriculture, we will only
describe some of those related to crop breeding, since a comprehensive discussion
of past innovations in agriculture is beyond the scope of this chapter.
3.2 Innovations in Crop Breeding
Wild grains were collected and eaten from at least 20,000 BC by hunter-gatherer
populations. From around 9,500 BC, the eight Neolithic founder crops, emmer and
einkorn wheat, barley, flax, peas, chickpeas, lentils, and bitter vetch, were cultivated
in the Eastern Mediterranean regions extending from current Greece to Libya. Rice
was domesticated in China around 6,000 BC, followed by mung, soy, and azuki
beans (Diamond 1997). Plants which initially succeeded were self-pollinators
which were easy to grow, and their early domestication selected for properties such
as shatter resistance in wheat for easy harvesting. One of the many benefits of agriculture is greater efficiency. Hunter-gatherer populations were regulated by the
amount of food and the number of kills a tribe could achieve. For example, a tribe
of 50 might have needed a territory of 100 square kilometers to survive (Tallavaaraa
et al. 2018). This in turn meant that the earth could, at most, support a population of
20 million hunter-gatherers. Efficiency became key to population growth and success of the human race; innovations in agriculture made it possible.
It is noteworthy that modern agriculture is capable of supporting today’s world
population of 7.7 billion, but that important innovations and significant productivity
increases are urgently needed to support a world population, projected by the United
Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs to be 9.7 billion in 2050.
1
Progress in early agricultural practices was slow, progressive, and localized.
Earliest cultivators likely combined hunting-gathering with what they managed to
grow (Kavanagh et al. 2018), and it took thousands of years to progressively select
seeds that were easier to cultivate and provided more nutritious food. Our ancestors
did not live in a global society; hence the same innovations had to be made independently in different parts of the world, sometimes thousands of years and miles apart.
Weiss et al. (2006) divide domestication of plants into a “gathering” stage, a “cultivation” stage during which plants were sown and harvested, and a “domestication”
phase during which mutants with desirable characteristics were selected. For most
major food sources, the domestication phase resulted in progressively better cultivars. The process of selection had begun, but it was slow and empirical. The first
documented hybrid was achieved by Thomas Fairchild, a “gardener in London”
who founded City Gardens, a commercial venture in which he planted and bred
1 https://un.org/development/desa/en/news/population/world-population-prospects-2019.html.
Accessed 8/31/2019.
M. L. Müller and H. Campos
local deforestation and irrigation, it also led to fundamental changes in society and
the way humans segregated tasks for greater efficiency. Though successful innovation examples can be found in every single aspect of agriculture, we will only
describe some of those related to crop breeding, since a comprehensive discussion
of past innovations in agriculture is beyond the scope of this chapter.
3.2 Innovations in Crop Breeding
Wild grains were collected and eaten from at least 20,000 BC by hunter-gatherer
populations. From around 9,500 BC, the eight Neolithic founder crops, emmer and
einkorn wheat, barley, flax, peas, chickpeas, lentils, and bitter vetch, were cultivated
in the Eastern Mediterranean regions extending from current Greece to Libya. Rice
was domesticated in China around 6,000 BC, followed by mung, soy, and azuki
beans (Diamond 1997). Plants which initially succeeded were self-pollinators
which were easy to grow, and their early domestication selected for properties such
as shatter resistance in wheat for easy harvesting. One of the many benefits of agriculture is greater efficiency. Hunter-gatherer populations were regulated by the
amount of food and the number of kills a tribe could achieve. For example, a tribe
of 50 might have needed a territory of 100 square kilometers to survive (Tallavaaraa
et al. 2018). This in turn meant that the earth could, at most, support a population of
20 million hunter-gatherers. Efficiency became key to population growth and success of the human race; innovations in agriculture made it possible.
It is noteworthy that modern agriculture is capable of supporting today’s world
population of 7.7 billion, but that important innovations and significant productivity
increases are urgently needed to support a world population, projected by the United
Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs to be 9.7 billion in 2050.
1
Progress in early agricultural practices was slow, progressive, and localized.
Earliest cultivators likely combined hunting-gathering with what they managed to
grow (Kavanagh et al. 2018), and it took thousands of years to progressively select
seeds that were easier to cultivate and provided more nutritious food. Our ancestors
did not live in a global society; hence the same innovations had to be made independently in different parts of the world, sometimes thousands of years and miles apart.
Weiss et al. (2006) divide domestication of plants into a “gathering” stage, a “cultivation” stage during which plants were sown and harvested, and a “domestication”
phase during which mutants with desirable characteristics were selected. For most
major food sources, the domestication phase resulted in progressively better cultivars. The process of selection had begun, but it was slow and empirical. The first
documented hybrid was achieved by Thomas Fairchild, a “gardener in London”
who founded City Gardens, a commercial venture in which he planted and bred
1 https://un.org/development/desa/en/news/population/world-population-prospects-2019.html.
Accessed 8/31/2019.
M. L. Müller and H. Campos