APR 24

25. APR 24

Assigned Work

• Montgomery, David. Chapter 4: "Graveyards of Civilizations" (pp. 49-81) (32)
• Montgomery, David. Chapter 10: "Life Span of Civilizations" (pp. 233-246) (13)

In Class

• Documentary reports:

• The End of Meat

Final Assignment: "My Philosophy of Food" paper

• This 7-9 page paper is a statement of your "Philosophy of Food," which represents your current views on major questions addressed by the course. You should develop the paper by spending some time paging through the course readings, wiki notes, and your own notes. For each section of the course, identify information and conclusions that you feel have influenced your thinking about food. Not everything in the course will meet this standard, but you should develop a set of conclusions from your review of the course that you can identify with. Sometimes our "food slogans" will help with this as they are meant to encapsulate a general point based on the readings. Once you collect this information, try to integrate it. What are the general lessons from the course that inform your view of the nature of food, the challenges of eating well, and the food values that you want to advocate going forward in your life?

• The rubric for this paper is roughly the same as we have been using. Good writing, good use of content from the course, and, in this case a kind of "synthesis" or "putting together" of that content into general points that address the question above. This not an argument paper, but you should indicate through your writing why you have chosen the lessons you did. Above all, try to make this a statement that reflects your actual convictions about the main question above.

• You must include a brief assessment 1-2 pages of Montgomery’s argument from our last unit and how it will or will not affect your thinking about the nature of food.

Montgomery, Dirt, Chapter 4, "Graveyards of Empires"

• Thesis: Soil degradation doesn't directly cause declines in civilization, but makes civilizations more vulnerable to "hostile neighbors, internal sociopolitical disruption, and harsh winters or droughts."
• Tikal (Guatamala) - Meso-American (Mayan, in this case) civilization reclaimed by the jungle. 1840s re-discovery. (returns to this at the end).

• Ancient Greece

• (In this section, he implies that we tell "false histories" of ancient agriculturalists when we imagine that they took care of their soil.)
• As land degraded, needed more slaves to feed owners. Sporadic use of fertilizers. Hills around Athens bare by 570 BC (before Plato).
• Evidence of knowledge of erosion (from hillsides) as public policy, but failure to address it. (Recall Diamond’s point in Collapse)
• By time of Peloponnesian War (431-404), Egypt & Sicily provide 1/3 to 3/4 of food to Greece.
• (Comments by Plato and Aristotle on soil degradation.). Imagine Greece with oak forests and more grasslands. 15” of soil lost from Argolid uplands, 3’ from lowland slopes — 2300 to 1600 bc. Note: the ability to reconstruct ancient soil patterns is very recent.
• Greeks repeat pattern of Mesopotamia -- intensified cultivation as population grows. Plow a significant step. p. 54: 1,000 year cycle of soil erosion / pop density decline.
• Evidence of movement from small diversified farming to large plantations with fewer crops.
• We associate Greece with olive trees and grapes, but that's partly because they do well in the thin rocky soil left from millennia of soil erosion.

• Rome

• 146bc, conquest of Corinth, incorporate of Greece into Empire
• Research of Vita-Finzi, mid-60s: Was soil erosion (in Libya) from climate change or mismanagement? Found two major periods of hillside erosion: one ancient,attributable to climate, the other dated to late Roman era. Climate also involved when you mismanage soil because land is more vulnerable to climate variation. (Note: In light of climate change, food security (or price stability) will become a greater concern.)
• Roughly 5,000 to 4,000 bc.: agriculture introduced to Italian pennisula by immigrants.
• Significance of Bronze Age (2,000bc to 800bc) and Iron Age (500 bc on): depth of plowing and deforestation.
• 500bc -- highpoint of productivity - 1-5 acres / family. "farmers" had social status. Family names often associated with agriculture — Cicero “Chick peas”
• Erosion in south (Campagna) also produced malaria from pooling of water on eroded land.
• Cato's De Agri Cultura - p.59 Cato brought plump figs from Carthage to the Senate floor, arguing that Carthage was a threat to Rome because of its food productivity. Ended all his speeches with "Carthage must be destroyed." Third Punic War took care of that. Roman model become colonial system of agriculture around N. Africa and Sicily. Pliny the Elder (23-79ad)
• Varo, De re Rustica, 117bc, focused on intensive high yield ag for the times.
• Like Greece, Romans in Empire Period relied heavily on slaves to feed them.

• Evidence of soil mismanagement in Roman Republic and Empire.

• Difference in Roman case: extensive knowledge of husbandry. 1960s studies of erosion around Rome: 1" every 1,000 years before the Via Cassia was built, 1"per 200 years after.
• Dramatic examples in Ostia and Ravenna. Silting pushed these ancient coastal cities away from the sea.
• substory: emergence of the latifundia system of agriculture in 2nd cent bc due, in part to post-war availability of cheap land, lots of slaves. 63
• by 300 ad, productivity of central Italy dramatically declined. (Campagna and sicily currently desertifying). [1]
• Empire needed to annex parts of N. Africa to secure food. 200,000 tons of grain a year from Egypt and N. Africa to feed 1 million Romans. Mid-80s UNESCO research moved us away from climate explanation for decline.
• 66: early 20th thesis (1916 - Columbia U prof Vladimir Simkhovitch) that agricultural policy contributed to decline of Roman Empire. Farm debt a problem then and now.

• Egypt

• 30bc - Egypt becomes a colonial food source. after Cleopatra dies. Emperor Augustus (1st cent ad) forbade senators and nobles from entering Egypt due to fear of its ag power.67
• story of 19th American, George Perkins March, research in Italy on soil erosion. early hypothesis of Roman land misuse. land doesn't always recover.

• North Africa - Mideast

• Lowdermilk in Tunisia, Algieria. Then on to Levant. Lebanon and Israel.

• Back to Meso-America, Tikal, and the Mayan case

• Maize domestication about 2000bc. greatest erosion around 600-900ad, along with evidence steep population decline. from 1million in 3rd c. ad. to 1/2 that 200 years later.
• mechanisms: slash and burn agriculture. fertility declines. but worked at low population levels.
• lots of studies of silting and erosion. p. 75ff.

• General points:

• Soil degradation characteristic of major civilizations. Usually the result of over-exploitation of resources in the face of population growth.
• Soil degradation not the sole cause of civilization decline, but it "leaves societies vulnerable to hostile neighbors, internal sociopolitical disruption, and harsh winters or droughts"
• Reflected in commitments to slavery, expansion, and exploitation of neighbors.
• Happens regardless of knowledge of good practices.
• Often in connection with development of a food export industry.

• Civilizations which left records often assigned blame to climate change, disappearance of water sources. (Remarkable exceptions include famous intellectuals like Pliny the Elder, Tertulian, Plato, Aristotle.)

Montgomery, Chapter 10: Life Span of Civilizations

• Framing the soil / civilization argument in broadest terms:

• Estimates of the carrying capacity of the earth: Catholic Bishops say 40 billion (is that true?!). Might get to 15 billion "if we share the planet with nothing else" some biologists think we are over the limit.
• Both capitalists and marxists theorize land as infinitely productive or infinitely substitutable. General endorsement of effectiveness of markets, but he points out that resource depletion is not adequately theorized or accounted for in practice.

• Lifespan of civilization measurable in relation bt initial soil and rate of erosion. Estimates of rate: 1" in 1,000yr vs. 40 years.

• 238: We can't move anymore. Estimate of hectares per person. Explores physical and genetic limits on productivity. Key globalization point: There's not much left to cultivate. Nice analysis about how large vs. small societies respond to problems.
• Crop yields are flat since the 70s. More nitrogen needed to maintain current levels.
• 20th cent food production doubled by increased use of Nitrogen fertilizers 7x and 3.5x increase in Phosphorus.

• Agrarian approach: Wendell Berry. Advocates “adaptation of economic activity to capacity of land to sustain that activity.” 240

• 241: Agro-ecology: Need to treat soil as a "locally adapted biological system rather than a chemical system"

• 241: not just about organic, but about enriching soil. mentions California’s monoculture organic. "unglobalization of ag" as oil becomes expensive. example of 19th cent. Paris use of horse shit to fertilize fields. (urban farming -- look up new examples)

• connections between climate change, Syrian civil war, ISIS and refugee crisis. There has been some reporting on this, especially the Syrian war, which followed 5 years of crop failures.