What Happened to Fertile Lands of EB Time?

**antisocialmunky** · 01-11-2009, 04:44

The biggest cause is human mismanagement. The second biggest cause is natural process. When the natural processes are exacerbated by human mismanagement you get the loss of these great agricultural sites(deforestation -> erosion, over farming -> salinization and infertility). Its not a quincidence that the great historically fertile areas that gave birth to great civilizations have been reduced over the years and some are/have been turned into deserts.

Heck look at the situation in the American Midwest. I live in Kansas, here there's the problem of wet agriculture in the dry western half of the state. Instead of the traditional dry farming, people drain the fossil water supplies at an unreplenishable rate. This has/will turn western Kansas into a dryer area due to the lowering of hte water table. Look at the dust bowl because people left the fields fallow without any plants to bind the top soil together. The American Midwest has only been the subject of intense western farming techniques for about 200 years and despite still being the most productive land on the planet, its fertility has been greatly impacted.

**HunGeneral** · 01-11-2009, 10:17

Yes Human interference has a great role in decreasing cropland. The heavy desertification in North Africa was seriously increased by the romans who destroyed many forest so they could use the ground as crop fields (N. Africa being there "bred-basket").

Another case would be the greeks and the oil trees - I'm not sure about this but I read that many once fertile areas of greece were "ruined" by the increase of oil tree plantings. Oil trees have a special root (can't say it's english name) which goes very deep into the ground but it doesn't hold the upper layers of soil (most fertile) which can be washed away by rain. The greeks knew this so they built teraces (or something like that) around olive trees to keep the rain from washing it away. However due to constant and long wars (like the Peloponesian Wars) farmers were away from there fields over a long time and the teraces couldn't be maintained (plus the destruction of war didn't spare it either). After that the soil there was only able to keep oil trees but no other plants.
I'm not sure about this one but I think it is possible.

**The Fuzz** · 01-11-2009, 16:49

The Soviets didn't do the region any favors, either . . .

Everything else I'd have said was covered earlier. I have this love of Central Asia and everytime someone disparages it I launch into this grand speech about the constant warfare and Mongol/Turkic/etc invasions and the Great Game and all that good stuff.

**palmtree** · 01-11-2009, 17:35

I recall reading that the fertile lands of Spain were ruined when Spanish nobles from the 16th century and onwards converted them from grain production to grazing land for sheep. Selling Merino wool was much more profitable than growing food, but the sheep herds eroded most of the topsoil in the process.

**desert** · 01-11-2009, 17:42

Today's supercrops in an acre of those fertile lands would make a nice yield.

**Mediolanicus** · 01-11-2009, 17:57

I've read that the desertification of the North African bread basket was caused by three reasons.

1. Natural desertification, as mentioned somewhere above. The Sahara was nice and green until 6000-5000 BC.
2. Tree cutting Romans, also mentioned above.
3. And indirectly, the Muslim conquest of North Africa and in particular the goat herding they brought along.

And add to this general human mismanagement and you have a nice recipe for barren wastelands...

**Philippus Flavius Homovallumus** · 01-11-2009, 21:37

Generally important crops/livestcok spell doom for an eco-system. This is true with the hardy East-European wheat that was planted in the Great Plains in America, it worked great for about one hundred years until the dust storms of mid-last century.

**Subotan** · 01-11-2009, 19:21

Originally Posted by The Fuzz

The Soviets didn't do the region any favors, either . . .

Everything else I'd have said was covered earlier. I have this love of Central Asia and everytime someone disparages it I launch into this grand speech about the constant warfare and Mongol/Turkic/etc invasions and the Great Game and all that good stuff.

Wasn't it Khrushchev who wanted to plant maize in Kazakhstan, and it turned out to be the worst crop imaginable, and the USSR went from being an exporter to an importer of food?

**Nirvanish** · 01-12-2009, 21:12

Originally Posted by Subotan

Wasn't it Khrushchev who wanted to plant maize in Kazakhstan, and it turned out to be the worst crop imaginable, and the USSR went from being an exporter to an importer of food?

Yes this would be Khrushchev's idea of using the Aral Sea to irrigate the surrounding regions of the Soviet Union so that they could produce corn. If you take a look at modern pictures of the Aral Sea, 1, 2, 3, you can tell exactly how that turned out.

It is kind of interesting that this topic turned up on here, I received a book for Christmas which deals with this subject. Collapse by Jared Diamond (His previous book, Guns, Germs, and Steel, is far more well known.) basically points out examples of how the misuse of many different societies' environments eventually lead to their own demise. From what I have read so far, I do not believe there will be any examples from the EB world but many of you may still find it an interesting read.