Approaches to the Origins of Agriculture

The Battle Rages On

Reflections on nutrition in biological anthropology.

The water footprint of sweeteners and bio-ethanol

The U.S. National Academy of Sciences issued a report in 1966 (1) stressing the need for research on the principal food plants of the world. Although about 3,000 different species are utilized by humans as food, only about 150 are commercially important. Of these, wheat, com or maize, rice, potato, various beans, sugar cane, sweet potato, sugar beets and cassava feed the majority of the world population. Four are root and tuber crops: sugar beets, cassava, sweet potato and potato. In the temperate areas potatoes, and to a somewhat lesser extent sweet potatoes, are important foods. In the tropics, various other root and tuber crops are also considered staples and zealously cultivated and preserved (18).

This study describes changes in the prevalence of Leptospira interrogans infections among small mammals, including rats and larger domestic and wild mammals in Lviv Oblast, a region in western Ukraine from 2001–2015, using the microscopic agglutination test (MAT). A total of 439,948 domestic or wild animals were tested. We found the prevalence of Leptospira interrogans exposure varied among tested species and changed over the time. Infection was significantly less common in domestic animals, than in wild rodents. In swine the overall seroprevalence was 0.51%, while in cattle it was 0.19%. In dogs it was higher—2.75%. After 2006, evidence of infection was only observed in swine among domestic animals. The prevalence among large wild animals (0.25%) was similar to that among domestic animals. Among small mammals and rats, seroprevalence was most commonly observed among Rattus norvegicus (18.44%) and it was less common among other wild small mammals (8.74%). There were two dominant serogroups among large wild and domestic animals–L. icterohaemorrhagiae and L. hebdomadis while among wild small mammals the two most common were L. icterohaemorrhagiae and L. grippotyphosa. Wild animals with antibodies were found throughout the entire oblast.

Animal domestication is the process of changing wild animals into domesticated animals that can be kept stably for a long period of time. As the content of the Neolithic agricultural revolution, domestication is one of the important milestones of the progress of human civilization. Due to the close relationship between humans and animals, domestication has not only changed the wild state of animals, but also changed the habits and historical processes of human beings. The key question on animal domestication research include who is the ancestors of the domesticated animals were, the changes produced by domestication, and the time and place of domestication. Due to the advances in high-throughput genomic technologies and correspondence analysis methods, animal domestication is generally studied at the population level. Here we discuss the research content of animal domestication under population genetics, including population history, selection signals, as well as gene introgression, and we highlight two new expand contents, namely, dating the initial time of gene selection and the time of gene introgression. Finally, we summarize the recent research progress of major domesticated including pig, chicken, sheep and goat. These advances provide a new insights and perspective for the research on the animal domestication.

Variable Holocene climate conditions have caused cultures to thrive, adapt or fail. The invention of agriculture and the domestication of plants and animals allowed sedentary societies to develop and are the result of the climate becoming warmer after the last glaciation. The subsequent cooling of the Younger Dryas forced humans to concentrate into geographic areas that had an abundant water supply and ultimately favorable conditions for the use of agriculture and widespread domestication of plants and animals. Population densities would have reached a threshold and forced a return to foraging, however the end of the Younger Dryas at 10,000 BP allowed agrarian societies to grow in number and expand spatially. The Norse took advantage of the favorable climate conditions of the medieval warm period (800 to 1300 CE) to establish settlements off the coast of Greenland, but the onset of the Little Ice Age (1350-1850 CE) caused sea ice to block trade routes with China and led to their demise. The long and cold winters of the Little Ice Age inspired works of art and literature, and were celebrated in London, but also caused crop failures, famine and disease. The Dust Bowl drought of the 1930’s only lasted six years but caused the most devastating ecological, sociological, agricultural, and economic disaster in United States history. Multicentury and multidecadal droughts led to the collapse of the Akkadian, Classic Maya, Mochica, and Tiwanaku civilizations. The primary factors affecting global climate variations include changes in thermohaline circulation, solar irradiance, and the effects of active volcanoes. Complex societies are not completely powerless nor fully adaptive to climate change. Modern society should use knowledge of past abrupt climate changes to better prepare for the future.

Recent research has made considerable progress towards our understanding of the origins of agriculture and the domestication of animals in prehistoric Southeast Asia. This thesis will contribute to this knowledge by investigating the faunal assemblage from archaeological sites in the Upper Mun River Valley, northeast Thailand. The major goal of this research is to address the hypothesis: Prehistoric communities in the Upper Mun River Valley became more reliant on domestic animals as part of their subsistence strategies over time, from the Neolithic to the Iron Age To address this hypothesis 22283 vertebrate animal remains from the prehistoric sites of Ban Non Wat, Ban Salao, and Nong Hua Raet were identified and analysed into 57 taxonomic groups. From this analysis, the subsistence strategies in these early communities were determined. Whether these strategies changed throughout time, due to social changes, was investigated. The zooarchaeological records from the three sites were compared to modern comparative studies from the Hmong and Lao-Isan cultures of Southeast Asia. The results show that the subsistence role of domestic animals in the Upper Mun River Valley changed from the Neolithic to the Iron Age. At Ban Non Wat, a site that encompasses a time span of 1650 BC to 500 AD, the volume (m3) of pig and bovid remains increased in the Bronze Age contexts, with bovid remains increasing again in Iron Age contexts. This illustrates the increasing importance of animal husbandry at this site. Wild resources such as deer, fish, and turtle/ tortoise remains were also identified in lower volumes in Iron Age contexts in comparison to Bronze Age and Neolithic at Ban Non Wat. At Ban Salao, an Iron Age site (500 BC to 500 AD), bovid remains made up the majority of the assemblage, with pig second highest. Only a small number of deer, fish, and turtle remains were identified. Likewise, at the Iron Age site of Nong Hua Raet (500 BC to 500 AD), bovid remains were found more often than pig remains and other animals, such as deer, fish, and turtle. The age at death estimates for pig, and the frequency of skeletal elements at Ban Salao and Nong Hua Raet, indicates that pigs may have been raised or butchered offsite. The lack of fish species related to rice agriculture, and low numbers of rats and mice, suggests that Ban Salao and Nong Hua Raet were not intensive rice farming sites. It is argued that these sites were seasonally occupied. If the Iron Age results are analysed as a community of sites, it demonstrates clustered groups specialising in one or two resources, with linear communities sharing resources. These findings demonstrate how the subsistence role of animals in early agricultural communities in the Upper Mun River Valley changed over time, with communities becoming more reliant on domestic animals from the Neolithic to the Iron Age. However, hunting and fishing remained an important part of subsistence strategies throughout all time periods at Ban Non Wat. The increased reliance on domestic animals confirms a socio-cultural change in subsistence towards the use of domestic animals as a food source, and provides evidence of an agricultural intensification of seasonal rice farming. The comparative studies from the Hmong and Lao-Isan cultures has led to the conclusion that the seasonal nature of intensive Iron Age agricultural may have had an influence on the season wild animals were hunted. The results of this thesis are inconclusive as to which current model of social change in Southeast Asia the data supports. This may relate to the overlap within the structure of the models themselves, or suggest that no model entirely encompasses social change that occurred in the prehistoric communities of the Upper Mun River Valley. This research contributes significantly to our understanding of changes to subsistence resources in agricultural communities of Upper Mun River Valley and the wider Southeast Asian region.

Agriculture sector is one of essential sector in the Egyptian economy. The sector is the main source of food required by Egyptian people, in addition to that the sector is also a source of row materials for many in industries. On the other hands, sugar cane and sugar beet crops are the main source of sugar in Egypt as well as in many other countries. The average sugar cane area and production were about 0.32 millon Fadden and 15.60 millon tons during the period (1995-2014). While sugar beet area was 0.21 millon fadden and 4.53 millon ton during the years (1995-2014). The research problem may be concentrated on that domestic sugar production is short meeting local consumption and there for the government has to fill the gap through imports which means a burden on government budget. The shortage of domestic sugar production is mainly due to the limited area of sugar cane crop, which is mainly due to the limited agricultural land and water. The increase of population and the per capita consumption of sugar and the need to rationalize water use have made sugar production in Egypt more accurate. The main objective of the present research is therefore a trial to estimate farmers supply response of sugar response of sugar produced from sugar cane and sugar beet in an attempt to reduce sugar imports. The study has also tried to examine factors that may affect sugar consumption, i.e. social and political factors are also taken into consideration. The study showed that Brazil, India and China are the main producer of sugar cane, 48.32%, 29.32% and 9.31% respectively. The three countries produce together about 87% of sugar from sugar cane. On the other hand, France, USE, Germany produce together about 66% of total sugar beet. A study of supply response of sugar cane showed that farm price of sugar cane with two years lag and net return per Fadden with one year lag the important factors affective sugar cane production .As for sugar beet production, it was found that farm price and area with one year lag were the most important factor affecting sugar supply from sugar beet. The study recommends the expansion of sugar beet area particularly in the now reclaimed land in addition to of farming an encouraging price to farmers. Finally it is advisable to rationalize sugar consumption by Egyptian people.

Unmanned aerial vehicle surveys were conducted in the summer season of 2016 and the winter season of 2017 to investigate the large wild herbivore population, including kiangs, Tibetan gazelles and bharals, in Madoi County; the source region of the Yellow River. The study generated forage grass production data in 30 m spatial resolution in Madoi County in 2016 using a downscaling algorithm; estimated a forage-livestock balance including wild animals and domestic animals; and analyzed the effect of the large wild herbivore population on the balance between forage grass and herbivory in Madoi County. The large wild herbivore population was estimated based on the density of the animals in the survey sample strip and compared and verified with available statistical data and the two survey results from the summer season of 2016 and winter season of 2017. The results showed that: (1) in the winter season of 2017, the populations of kiang, Tibetan gazelle and bharal were 17,100, 16,000 and 9300, respectively, while the populations of domestic yak, Tibetan sheep and horse were 70,800, 102,200 and 1200, respectively. The total population of large wild herbivores and domestic animals was 475,000 (sheep units). The ratio (in sheep units) between large wild herbivores and domestic animals was 1:4.5; (2) When only considering domestic animals, the grazing pressure index was 1.13, indicating slight overloading of the grassland. When considering domestic animals and large wild herbivores (kiang, Tibetan gazelle and bharal), the grazing pressure index was 1.38, suggesting moderate overloading of the grassland; (3) If large wild herbivores are not taken into consideration when the forage-livestock balance is calculated, the grazing pressure will be under-estimated by 22%. Overgrazing is the major cause of grassland degradation in Madoi County. An additional 79,000 tons of hay or a 30% reduction in domestic animals is required to maintain a forage-livestock balance in Madoi County.

SummaryIn t h e four production areas studied the gross energy contents of the biomass of the U.K. and Californian sugar beet crops were about 222 GJ/ha/year, while those for the Queensland and Transvaal sugar cane crops were about 682 GJ/ha/year. Recoverable sucrose constituted about 45% of the gross energy yield in the sugar beet crops but only about 29% in t he sugar cane crops, largely due to the bagasse (fibre) present in the cane. Since the sugar cane bagasse was used as fuel it provided nearly all the energy for the production of raw sugar from the sugar cane crops, but sugar beet by-products supplied no energy for t he production of sugar from sugar beet. This difference between the two species was the main reason why the support energy required for sugar production from beet, 28·8 GJ/t sugar, was greater than for production from sugar cane, 10·5 GJ/t sugar. The ratios, energy in refined sucrose:support energy required for its production, were 0·60 for sugar beet and 1·60 for sugar cane.The efficiencies of conversion of the photosynthetically active solar radiation incident on the crops into energy in biomass (excluding fibrous roots) were 1·2% for sugar beet and 2·0% for sugar cane. This difference in efficiency did not appear to be due to a consistent species difference in the proportion of t he radiation intercepted by the crops, and may have been a consequence of the more efficient photosynthetic carbon fixation mechanism in sugar cane than in sugar beet. The efficiencies of conversion of incident photosynthetically active radiation into energy as sucrose recovered from the plants showed no consistent difference between species and averaged 0·56%.

Sugar has formed an essential part of human diets for a long time and is an important raw material for the food, beverage and pharmaceutical industries. It is a common name for sucrose and can be extracted from two field crops—sugar beet and sugar cane. Sugar beet (Beta vulgaris ssp. vulgaris) is mainly grown in countries with temperate climates while sugar cane (Saccharum officinarum L.) is cultivated primarily in tropical and subtropical countries. It was demonstrated that sugar beet yield has kept increasing since 1926, but sugar concentration (on fresh weight basis) has not changed much. In the meantime, the improved potential sugar beet yields in the varieties included in the variety trials have been rapidly translated into commercially delivered yields by sugar beet farmers. This can be seen in the increase of farmer-delivered sugar beet yields in parallel with the increase of sugar beet yields in the variety trials. The warming temperature and increasing concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere due to climate change have benefitted the sugar beet crop in recent decades and will probably create opportunities to further boost sugar crop productivity in the future. However, social and environmental demands to adapt sugar beet production to both less input-intensive and less pesticide-dependent cropping systems to mitigate climate change and to maintain biodiversity friendly environments require sugar beet farmers to balance the trade-offs between maximising the sugar yield and increasing the use efficiencies of inputs such as fertilisers, fungicides, pesticides, herbicides and fuels. Sugar beet breeders and other stakeholders need to breed climate-smart cultivars resistant to diseases and find other effective non-chemical solutions to the reduced availability and/or removal of reliable pesticides in the face of more new pathogens emerging under climate change.KeywordsPotential crop yieldsCrop improvementYield gapsClimate changeProlonged growing seasonCrop healthPlant pathogenic diseasesPesticide use

This paper examines the economic sustainability of the implementation of a local productive arrangement for the production of ethanol as a biofuel, from sweet potato, in the municipality of Palmas - TO. The method chosen to conduct this study was the cost - social benefits, considering aspects of economic profitability, the social and environmental sustainability. For analytical purposes the indicators calculated from the production of biofuel from sweet potato, were compared to the sugar cane as the reference for the production of ethanol in Brazil. The production of ethanol for fuel purposes, from the sweet potato, although it is possible the economic point of view, presents clear disadvantage with respect to the processing from sugar cane, which in fact has a unit and higher profitability gains in scale. But when it addresses the sustainability of the whole production chain of sugar cane, it appears that the costs to society caused by burning means that it is not sustainable. For the case of sweet potatoes, while a business less attractive from the economic-financial, behind social and environmental gains.

Egyptian civilization is the gift of the Nile. But it is also the result of climatic change since the last ice age (Fagan 2004). During the last 10,000 years or so, desertification, punctuated by temporary reversals, has driven people out of what was once a well-watered savannah covering vast areas of the present Sahara into smaller areas fed by rivers and near-surface groundwaters. In Egypt, the result was a relatively large population in a relatively small area, the Nile Valley (Barich 1998). This has led to ideas that this population required organization in order for it to survive and allow complex regimented societies to develop; exemplified by the early Pharaonic period with its huge public works projects—the pyramids and associated monuments (Wilkinson 2003). But did complex societies evolve during this organization or was the organization a pre-requisite for the complex societies; did it take place before the constriction of society into the Nile Valley; and did it begin in one area and then spread? A popular view is that increasing social complexity occurred during the development of agriculture, made possible by a benign climate while severe climatic change interrupted this development (Burroughs 2005). On the other hand, there is increasing evidence that social complexity developed during climatic deterioration (Brooks 2006). Such questions require objective analysis of the timing of development of different social systems related to climatic change in different parts of Egypt and adjacent areas.

In India, sugar cane is a main crop grown for processing of sugar. As an alternative to sugar crop, sugar beet is a short duration crop, having growth period of 6–7 months as compared to 10–12 months of sugar cane, which results in higher productivity per unit time than sugar cane. Sugar yield of sugar beet is equivalent to that of sugar cane, having more sugar content, recovery and purity and can tolerate adverse conditions like salt and water stress. Sugar beet cultivation results in considerably good yield with use of less irrigation water than sugar cane. Sugar beet crop matures in April–May, when the cane-crushing season is nearly over, thus helps in increasing the operation period of the sugar mills from four to six months in a year. Hence, sugar beet has a potential in sugar industry of the subtropical regions, especially India. For widening the scope of cultivation of sugar beet under subtropical Indian conditions, there is need to select the most appropriate varieties, planting time, planting methods, planting density, sowing depth, adequate crop nutrition, pest management and irrigation scheduling. Further, intensive studies are needed to estimate the economics of its cultivation in comparison to winter crops under cultivation and sugar cane in the region. Also sugar industries need to be upgraded for processing of sugar beet to ensure its marketing at good price for more profit than existing crops.KeywordsConstraintsEconomic viabilitySubtropical conditionsSugar cropSugar productivitySustainability