AGRICULTURE AND INTERCULTURAL DIALOGUE
it’s our common heritage
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AGRICULTURE AND INTERCULTURAL DIALOGUE it’s our common heritage |
Civilization is founded on agriculture, which remains as
important today as 10 000 years ago when it was born. When early
hunter-gatherers settled in groups and domesticated wild crops and animals,
society began to evolve rapidly. Some community members specialized in producing
food, freeing others to invent ways of spinning and weaving, smelting and
casting of bronze, baking bricks, shaping clay on the potter’s wheel and
writing. Villages grew into towns and eventually into cities. To examine the
true worth of agriculture today and to celebrate the ongoing contribution of
different cultures to global agriculture, FAO has chosen “Agriculture and
intercultural dialogue” as the theme of World Food Day 2005.
This
year’s observance will also mark the 60th anniversary of the
Organization’s founding.
Although the domestication of wild plants and animals occurred independently in many parts of the world, the history of agriculture is full of examples of important intercultural exchanges.
The first archeological record of farming in Europe shows advanced tool technology but provides no evidence of simpler tools. One theory is that peoples from the Middle East brought their tools and technologies to Europe. Similar movements of farming peoples are thought to have occurred in Africa, Central and South America, China, India and Southeast Asia. Why did they move? Agriculture provided a more dependable source of food, causing populations to increase; eventually excess populations migrated to new lands.
Throughout history, the intercultural movement of crops and livestock breeds revolutionized diets and reduced poverty. Africa gave the world coffee, now a popular beverage worldwide and a mainstay of Latin American agriculture. Asia domesticated rice - the staple food for over half the world’s population - and sugar cane, a major cash crop in many regions. The introduction of the camel to Africa from Arabia allowed people to live and travel in more extreme environments and contributed meat and milk to diets.
But intercultural dialogue is more than transferring technologies, seeds and breeds. Most cultures, especially those in which the principal activity is agriculture, have profound religious beliefs, values and rituals concerning food and respect for the environment. The Ifugao rice terraces (see Ifugao rice terraces: a model holistic farming system, inside page spread) have functioned for 2 000 years based on such cultural values.
