by Jane Goodall
Then they had to build levees up to six feet high around the field. The field was drained for sowing and then flooded for growing the rice plants. Eventually the plants were left totally submerged for two months. For weeks on end, from dawn to dusk, both men and women labored in the fields, up to their ankles or midcalf in mud and water, swarmed by mosquitoes in the stifling heat and humidity. As if this was not enough, there was the danger of snakes and alligators.
And finally came the harvest, cutting the plants with iron sickles, stacking them on a mule or ox wagon, and after they had dried out, threshing them with flails to separate out the grains, a long and arduous process. If they failed to make their quota, they were whipped on their naked backs, women and children as well as men.
It is not surprising that mortality rates were high. In 1778, eighty people were abducted into slavery from North Africa to establish rice plantations—half died within the first year. Many were so desperate they tried to run away even though they knew the punishment they would face when caught—as they usually were. I read of one especially brutal overseer who gave each one a hundred lashes when they were caught, yet still his slaves attempted to escape. He eventually solved this problem by chaining them to each other around the neck, chaining to each one his spade, and forcing them to dig ditches, month in and month out. He boasted that he kept them in this way for two years.
The cruelty of the white plantation owners to their African slaves was horrendous. The conditions were so bad, especially on the rice plantations, that slaves frequently tried to run away, even knowing the savage beating they would receive if caught. They were beaten for many other reasons, including failure to meet their quotas. (CREDIT: HENRY LOUIS STEPHENS)
After the Civil War and the emancipation of the slaves, rice growing declined, but it was not given up entirely in America. Some one hundred varieties are grown across the country today.
Paddy Fields Wreaking Havoc
There are serious environmental concerns about the ongoing large-scale farming of rice. The flooding of the paddy fields means that the organic matter, buried underwater and deprived of exposure to the air, starts to ferment. In the wet season the microbes in the soil convert carbon into methane gas, which is a greenhouse gas that is twenty times more potent than CO2. Another major concern is that as a result of climate change, sea levels are rising, so the paddy fields will remain submerged for longer—and produce ever more methane.
The production of rice is severely taxing to the environment wherever it is grown commercially. For example, rice cultivation was introduced to Australia, where it grew well but only as a result of extensive irrigation—and this can be a major problem in areas without heavy rainfall. During the recent cycle of drought an unnatural demand was placed on the waters of the Murray-Darling Basin river system.
When I was visiting Australia in 2008, water from the river basin had actually stopped flowing into the sea, so that, at high tide, seawater entered the river delta, making the water in the delta more saline than that of the ocean and greatly compromising the ecology of the region. During those same years, of course, rice growers suffered huge losses. The very heavy rains that ended the drought restored the level of the river and washed the saline water back into the sea. But the same thing is likely to happen again.
In some countries, such as the Philippines and Thailand, governments seeking self-reliance in rice production have sought to squeeze out two harvests a year—with unfortunate consequences. Canals were built to irrigate the paddy fields in the dry season—and this meant other crops suffered. Moreover, this ignored the wisdom of growing rice in the rainy season only so that the soil has a chance to recover from the months it is forced to remain underwater. Also, rotating rice with other crops is far more sensible, as it impedes the survival of rice pests and limits the output of methane.
(CREDIT: JANE GOODALL)
Cotton—Gossypium spp.
The material of choice for wearing in hot climates has always been cotton, for it allows your skin to “breathe.” Although synthetic materials now provide some competition, there is still a huge demand for cotton—it is a wonderful material. Unfortunately, as we shall see, commercial production of cotton has resulted in horrendous human suffering and horrendous damage to the environment.
Cotton is produced from a shrub-like plant, with an attractive flower. The seeds develop and are protected in what is called a boll—one cotton bush may have as many as one hundred bolls. Inside is a mass of soft, white, fluffy fibers that assist in the dispersal of seeds, enabling them to float through the air on the wind.
These fluffy fibers led to a very strange myth that seems to have originated in central Asia. It was described by John Mandeville’s 1371 book, The Travels of Sir John Mandeville: “There grew there [India] a wonderful tree which bore tiny lambs on the endes of its branches. These branches were so pliable that they bent down to allow the lambs to feed when they are hungrie.” There are stories of this preposterous plant in other sources as well, and while there is some variation, all agree that when the lambs (which are made of flesh and blood) can reach no more grass, they die—at which point they can be eaten!
Wild cotton plants grow in subtropical regions in Australia, Africa, Asia, and the Americas, and four species (G. hirsutum, herbaceum, barbadense, and arboreum) were domesticated in prehistory. The use of cotton fibers was discovered separately in the Old and New Worlds: fragments of cotton fibers dating around 6000 BC were discovered in Pakistan, and fibers dating around 5000 BC have also been found in Mexico and Peru. It was not until late medieval times that cotton fibers were imported to England for the mills. Presumably, it was the similarity of cotton fibers to sheep’s wool that lent credence to the bizarre story of the lamb tree mentioned above.
Cottonseeds are protected, in the seedpod or boll, by a mass of soft, white, fluffy fibers. These fibers led to the bizarre myth of a wonderful tree in India that grew tiny lambs of flesh and blood on the ends of its branches. This drawing comes from John Mandeville’s 1371 book, The Travels of Sir John Mandeville. (CREDIT: JANE GOODALL)
The early settlers in America established cotton plantations because the fabric was in high demand. As it was extremely labor-intensive, they purchased a great many African slaves to maintain the plantations. Initially Britain depended on India for its supply of cotton, but as cotton manufacturing expanded, Indian cotton could not supply the growing demand. And so Britain started buying more and more cotton from the New World plantations in America and the Caribbean. France, too, became a steady importer of cotton from these newer plantations.
However, during the American Civil War, the Northern states imposed embargoes on cotton exports from their Southern neighbors, so Britain and France had to buy their supplies from Egypt. This was more expensive, so as soon as it became possible, they once more imported American cotton. This had a direct impact on the Egyptian economy, and the government went bankrupt in 1876. (Partly as a result of this, in 1882 Britain was able to annex Egypt into its mighty empire.)
After the Civil War, cotton sales from the Southern states continued to pay for the country’s development, particularly in the North, and it was still the country’s main “cash” crop until late into the nineteenth century. By 1850, 2.5 million slaves were living in America. Of that population, just over 70 percent (or 1.8 million) were, in some way or another, involved in cotton production.
Current Dangers in the Cotton Fields
We shudder when we think of those days. How shocking to realize that the production of cotton is still causing untold human suffering. For one thing, in many of the cotton-producing countries (India, Egypt, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan) enforced child labor is what is keeping down the cost of production. Human rights groups are particularly targeting Uzbekistan. For example, its schools are closed during the cotton harvest, and children as young as seven are forced to work in the fields. Each child must fulfill his or her quota or risk detentions and sometimes
lower grades. If they run away, they may be expelled. These children—tens of thousands each year—must work long hours, often with inadequate food and in horrible conditions. Fortunately, as information about this situation leaks out, many international clothing companies are actually boycotting Uzbek cotton.
Another shocking fact about the cotton industry is that workers, including children, are often forced to work in the fields during or after crop spraying. Millions of metric tons of pesticides are sprayed on cotton crops every year, and most of the chemicals found in these pesticides are restricted, regulated, or even banned in the West. One study found that of the estimated two billion dollars’ worth of pesticides sprayed on cotton fields each year globally, more than 40 percent are labeled “hazardous” by the World Health Organization. Two of them, Aldicarb and Endosulfan, are particularly deadly. Endosulfan can cause paralysis, coma, and seizures, and it is the number-one cause of deaths by poison in West Africa (where children are actually trafficked for the cotton industry). Yet Endosulfan is the most widely used pesticide in the world. No wonder cotton is also said to be the “dirtiest crop.”
And in addition to all that, the water used for irrigating the cotton fields of central Asia contributed hugely to draining the Aral Sea, said to be one of the most staggering disasters of the twentieth century.
Cotton, in terms of dollars earned by the exporting countries, is the most valuable nonfood agricultural product. But if a correct balance sheet were produced, one that added in the costs incurred by the cotton pickers, their families, and the environment, the product would not seem to be so “valuable” after all. How ironic that a little plant that produces such soft and aesthetically pleasing material, in itself as innocent as the mythical lamb it was once thought to nurture, should lead to so much suffering and devastation. So much so that I feel guilty when I think of all the cotton garments I have worn over the years.
It is, of course, possible to grow organic cotton, and the demand for it, at present, outstrips availability. It is not always easy to find organic-cotton garments, and they are usually more expensive. But as with everything organic, it is worth the effort and extra money just to know that we are supporting sustainable production.
A Terrible Legacy
The exploitation of the poor or weak by the strong and powerful has always been a part of human history. The great plantations of the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries were profitable because of the use of cheap slave labor along with total disregard for environmental concern. Increasingly machinery took over from human sweat and muscle—which left thousands of ex-slaves uprooted from their own countries, stranded in alien cultures. Machinery also increasingly took over from draft animals.
We still have a long way to go before injustice is stamped out. In both rich and poor nations, developed and developing, there are still many ruthless business practices. Too often the natural world is exploited as, in the interests of increased profit, exhausted and chemically poisoned soil is forced to produce two crops per year instead of one, and more wilderness areas are destroyed for agriculture. Even plant nature is being bent to serve this greed, as their genetic inheritance is contaminated with the introduction of artificially modified genes. Moreover, in many developing countries slave labor is not a thing of the past, and crops are grown as a result of the sweat of people, including children, who have little option but to accept this servitude because of poverty, cultural norms, and lack of education. In the developed world too, illegal immigrant workers are often treated as slaves and work for a pittance in terrible conditions, unable to complain.
And, of course, the destruction of the environment, the cruelty inflicted on the natural world, plant and animal alike, and the terrible legacy we are leaving for the generations to come are ongoing.
Chapter 13
Food Crops
Wheat was one of the first farmed food crops, cultivated approximately eleven thousand years ago in Egypt. This etching, from the tomb of Ramesses III (who ruled from 1186 BC to 1155 BC), shows the step-by-step process of making bread from wheat at the royal bakery. (CREDIT: OXFORD ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ANCIENT EGYPT, EDITED BY DONALD B. REDFORD [2001] P. 197. BY PERMISSION OF OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, INC.)
The gradual changes in farming techniques that have taken place over the ages enabled the digging stick to be replaced with the hoe and scythe, then the hoe and scythe with the ox- or horse-drawn plow, and these in turn with mechanized tractor, combine harvester, and so on, each new innovation enabling a farmer to work a larger area with fewer people.
The original organic fertilizers such as rotting vegetation and animal dung, especially guano, became increasingly supplemented by and then substituted with a variety of chemically synthesized fertilizers that, while beneficial to the farmer in many ways, began to take a terrible toll on the quality of the soil.
Various methods for irrigation of crops were devised over the ages. There were the irrigation ditches and hand-pumped artesian wells. Then boreholes were drilled so that water could be pumped up from deep down under the ground, from the aquifers. Then came center pivots, with their long arms distributing water in a wide circle around them. When you fly over the American prairies in the summer, you look down on hundreds of green circles surrounded by brown grass. Groundwater levels fell and aquifers were shrinking. And as more and more land could be used for agriculture, with corresponding growth of human populations in the urban areas, water from rivers was diverted for irrigation and more and more dams were constructed. There have been devastating environmental impacts.
The crops that, today, provide staple foods for millions of people around the world, and play a major role in sustaining our growing populations, are maize (which Americans call corn), rice, wheat, and potatoes. Maize comes first in terms of quantity produced globally—the UN figures for 2007 show that 790 million tons were produced globally. This compared with 657 million tons of rice, 613 million tons of wheat, and 324 tons of potatoes. Approximately 43 percent of the maize produced in the United States in 2012 was sold for biofuel—although there are signs that this industry is in trouble.
Wheat—Triticum spp.
I am starting with wheat because it was among the founder crops at the dawn of agriculture—archaeological evidence shows that it was grown on the first-known farms carbon-dated to 9000 BC. And because we use the grains of wheat to make bread, and bread has always been an intrinsic part of my own diet.
My grandmother Danny used to bake bread, and that heady aroma is a treasured memory from early days at The Birches. I can see her now, mixing the dough in a large ceramic bowl, wheat flour and water and yeast. Kneading it with her knuckles, letting us help by pulling it into ropes, then kneading it again, and finally covering it with a cloth and leaving it in the hot cupboard overnight to rise, through the action of the yeast. The next morning it would be baked in the oven. I would always try to steal the crust while the loaf was still warm and eat it with butter and homemade jam—even though Danny disapproved, as it was not good for the loaf. My sister makes bread today, but in a machine, and though the smell is wonderful, it does not seem quite as powerful. However, there are still artisanal bakeries in Europe where I can stand outside on the street, all my olfactory senses enraptured by the aroma in the air, and recapture the sensation of absolute bliss I knew as a child when Danny baked bread.
When I first visited Brazzaville and Pointe-Noire in the Republic of the Congo, both fairly small towns in a developing country, I discovered, to my surprise, that there were countless little cafés that emitted the same mouthwatering smell of baking bread. But of course it should not have surprised me, for Congo-Brazzaville is a former French colony. And in all their colonies the French introduced the art of producing delectable croissants, brioches, and crispy-crunchy French bread.
Wheat is a kind of grass. There are four species of wild wheat, and it is thought that their grains were collected for consumption long before the plant was first domesticated in the Fertile Crescent of
the Near East. About two thousand years later, the cultivation of wheat began to spread throughout the ancient world, first to Greece, Cyprus, and India, then to Egypt and Spain. By 3000 BC it was being cultivated in England and Scandinavia, and a thousand years later it had reached China.
Not only was wheat among the first crops to be cultivated on a large scale, but surplus grain could be stored for long periods of time. This meant that numbers of people, many of whom were not involved in food production or procurement, could live permanently in one place. It thus played an important role in the development of the first cities.
Wheat is grown on more land than any other commercial crop—about 535 million acres around the world, and it thrives in amazingly diverse habitats, from near the Arctic Circle to the Equator, from sea level to the high plains of Tibet (thirteen thousand feet above sea level). Its grains are ground into flour that is transformed into bread and a thousand and one other culinary products. It is a leading source of vegetable protein, containing more than many other cereals. Whole-grain wheat is also rich in vitamins and minerals. Only the unfortunate people who must have a gluten-free diet are deprived of the beneficence of wheat. And even they, most experts agree, can drink Scotch whisky, made from fermented wheat grains, provided the beverage has been properly distilled.
My late husband, Derek Bryceson, told me that after World War II the British government came up with a plan to feed the people of war-torn Britain by developing more wheat production. One of the places they chose to do this was Tanzania (then named Tanganyika). Ex-servicemen were offered the opportunity to get degrees in agriculture, and given the chance of managing wheat farms in one of three areas (most of Tanzania is too arid for successful wheat farming—as was one of the three areas selected).