Projects Agriculture and Civilization
August 18th, 2008
In this episode, I interview Richard Manning, essayist and author of a number of books about agriculture and civilization. In this interview, we talk with Richard about the beginning of agriculture, the role annual grasses have played in shaping agriculture and civilization, the importance of grasslands, and the key to finding individual food niches within our local food sheds. This one is not to be missed.
Great interview. I’ve linked to it fomr here: http://agro.biodiver.se/2008/08/nibbles-ag-origins/
This was a very interesting podcast. Manning is so very right on so many topics that aren’t even addressed in today’s universities.
I might comment that no-till (or “conservation tillage”) is being increasingly accepted by producers, at least here in the SE USA. This, in contrast to the statements made around minute 17.5, where he states that agriculture necessitates tillage. If ag was invented before animal domestication (and i am not sure that it was), that would mean that most of human history’s agriculture involved reduced tillage, and therefore would not have the net carbon emission that it does today. That is not to say that ag was ever C positive, but then again, we never had to feed 7 billion people before, either.
Another interesting topic was N neutrality. Although not explicitly stated during the podcast, N-containing greenhouse gases are far less abundant than C greenhouse gases in the atm, and therefore the C gases receive more attention. But the discussion of N neutrality in this podcast was highly interesting, and i shall have to think about that one some more!
Great podcast, i shall recommend it to my agronomy and soils dept here in Auburn! Keep up the great work.