/vt/ - Virtual Youtubers

Think it's gonna be useful for some of yous too so here we go:
A history of world agriculture
key points:
>Soil nutrients and characteristics: Plants NEED nutrients to grow, chief among them nitrogen. How to maintain the soil nutrient level while not completely exhausting it is the key. However many natural processes such as precipitation, evaporation and mineralisation can cause the nutrients to become either lost or unreachable for the crops. One should also note that unless there's outside intervention, the level of nutrients usually reaches a level of equilibrium, of how much the soil can hold under different circumstances (seasons, climate etc). The contents of the soil is also of extreme importance as it limits how much land is arable using the tools one have at their disposal. Humus content (biomass) is crucial.

>Regeneeration of soil nutrients: The process of returning the cultivated soil to its natural state, or back to a reasonably productive state for subsistence, therefore needs to reintroduce as much of the nutrients lost in the growing of the crops as possible. While it's feasible to leave the farmed parcels to the wild and let the soil regenerate its biomass (slash-and-burn agriculture), it often takes at least a decade or more for the land to become productive again, and almost 50 years for the farmed land to return to its ecological climax, thus back to its most biomass rich state, where one can extract maximum output from it again. Also note that this technique is still widely practiced today in the global south.

>Ecological crisis in the Bronze age Mediterranean: However, the extensive exploitation of woodland resources after the neolithic period caused much of the Mediterranean basin to lose its natural forests, lands are exposed and turned into shrublands. Slash-and-burn agriculture is now untenable. Now the only way for farmlands to regain their nutrients is to practice transhumance, by using herds of sheep to graze, as widely as possible, the surrounding rocky landscape surrounding the now much smaller farms, or the agri, and introduce biomass as manure by penning the herd. The ard was also introduced at this point, where it aids the breaking up of the soil, reducing the capillary action within the soil and trapping the nutrients. However, the ard cannot turn over and break up the soil sufficiently enough, where it still requires long, manual labor to hoe any weeds and to form the furrows. Agriculture with the ard requires a long fallow period, usually more than year, for the herd to naturally graze and deposit manure by penning them on the land. (depending on the crop, it can be shorter, such as a one-year system with millet) This kind of agriculture could only sustain a small population as well with a few surpluses. This system also requires slaves to produce enough surplus, in part driving the culture around slavery during this period in history (as slaves don't have families to feed). New systems like terracing and intercropping with different types of plants, for example, wheat under olive groves, were developed.

>Collapse of the Western Roman Empire and development of bi & triennial agricultural system: The villas of the Roman Empire gradually developed into the feudal holdings and manors of medieval Europe. Farmers, lacking equipment and land were given refugee from the collapsing empire, where the system of serfdom was eventually developed and entrenched. However, the adoption, beginning in the mid-10th century, of scythes, carts, stables and the multipart plow allowed farmers to work more land. The increased output of hay and extended range of meadows allow more nutrients to be added to the farmlands. Livestock stabled during the winter can continue producing manure and are ready to be applied next spring, eliminating the biggest obstacle to farming in cold temperate Europe. The plow, with metal parts and now able to truly turn over the soil can work a much larger area. (incidentally it also allowed Northern Europe with its much harder soils to expand their farmland) This allows a two-year rotation with two harvests, of winter and spring cereal. The agricultural revolution in 10th century, together with later, a new triennial rotation, allowed urban population to boom thanks to the surplus they produce (but note that most are still very small, not more than ~3-50000) Though arguably it's more important for the expansion of artisanal industries. And the adoption of the new technique is also quite slow, where some parts of Europe(South and East) only adopted it in late 19th to early 20th century.