Agreculture knoweldge loss
Why are
things the way they are? My curious mind is still eager to understand all this
better… so the next few entries are what I call: piece of the puzzle, out of
different books.
Out of ‚Agroecology’
– the Science of Sustainable Agriculture. This part is a look back on
historical developments on agriculture – and how intertwined our world was
already back then…
“It is well
documented how the diseases carried by explorers affected native populations.
Especially in the New World (Americas), where rapid devastation of populations occurred.
As much as 90% of the population of some areas died in less than 100 years.
With them died cultures and knowledge system. The grisly effects of epidemics
characterized the earlier phases of contact, but other activities, especially slaving
for New World plantations, were also to have drastic impact on population and
thus on agricultural knowledge until well into the 19th century.
Initially,
local population were the focus of slave raids, but these groups were often
able to escape from bondage. The disease problems of the New World Indians also
made them a less than ideal labor force. African populations, on the other
hand, were accustomed to tropical conditions and were relatively resistant to “European”
diseases. They could thus satisfy the burgeoning manpower needs of sugar and
cotton plantations. Over tow centuries more than 20 million slaves were
transported from Africa to various slave plantations in the New world.
Slaving was
directed at the best labor force (the adult men and women) and it resulted in
the loss of this important labor force for local agriculture and the abandonment
of agriculture works as people sought to avoid slavery by moving to areas
distant from slavers. The disruption of knowledge systems through the export of
labor, the erosion of the cultural basis of local agricultures, and the mortality
associated with warfare stimulated by slaving raids was later compounded by the
integration of theses residual systems into mercantile and colonial networks”
I am not
sure how much the DR Congo was affected by this slave trade. Certainly the
Bas-Congo area on the West Coast must have suffered enormous losses. In the
east, it is my understanding that the Arabs come to hunt for slaves. To what
extent the local population was affected is unknown to me, as of now.
Nevertheless, surely the fact that societies here were disrupted, and in parts
destroyed, must have had affect on knowledge in general and agricultural knowledge
in particular.
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