Add offer

History of agriculture in Asia

20 topics: The origins of farming in the Fertile Crescent; The history of rice cultivation and domestication; The history of irrigation in ancient…

The origins of farming in the Fertile Crescent: c. 10,000–8000 BCE, Southwest Asia · Fertile Crescent. Cultivating plants and keeping animals gradually transform food production and the organisation of settlements.
The history of rice cultivation and domestication: c. 8000–4000 BCE, China · middle and lower Yangtze basin. From gathering wild rice to cultivating plants whose grains are easier to harvest and retain.
The history of irrigation in ancient Mesopotamia: 6th–5th millennia BCE, Present-day Iraq · Tigris and Euphrates valleys. Irrigation supports farming on the alluvial plains of southern Mesopotamia.
The First Olive Groves: The Emergence of Levantine Horticulture: c. 5000 BCE · evidence from Tel Tsaf, Jordan Valley and southern Levant; later the Mediterranean Basin. Charcoal, stones, oil residues and pollen reveal how long-lived plantings changed the organisation of farming.
Date Palms: Mesopotamian Gardens and Oasis Economies: fourth–third millennia BCE · early cultivation, Southern Mesopotamia and the Persian Gulf; later North African oases. Palm gardens combined long-term investment, variety propagation, skilled labour and rights to future harvests.
Indus agriculture: cities, rivers and two growing seasons: c. 2600–1900 BCE, Present-day Pakistan and northwestern India. Diverse winter and summer crops supplied the cities and villages of the extensive Harappan civilisation.
Chicken Domestication: From Asian Fields to Poultry Keeping: c. 1650–1250 BCE · evidence from Ban Non Wat, Ban Non Wat, northeastern Thailand; subsequent Eurasian history. Cereal fields, genetic exchange and changing uses of birds reveal the successive stages of chicken, meat and egg production.
Persian qanats: groundwater and dryland agriculture: 1st millennium BCE and later history, Iranian Plateau; the agricultural landscape of Kashan as an example. Gently sloping tunnels brought groundwater to fields and settlements, connecting technical knowledge with organised resource sharing.
Desert Farming in the Negev: From the Nabataeans to Byzantium: Fourth–seventh centuries CE · expansion; partial later continuity, Negev Highlands, especially around Shivta, Avdat and Nessana. Terraces, channels and sustained labour turned episodic runoff into a farming resource, supporting wine production for distant markets.
Qimin Yaoshu: agricultural knowledge in northern China: c. 533–544 CE · conventionally c. 540, Northern China · the Yellow River plains. Soil management, seed selection, livestock and processing in a major source for the history of Chinese farming.
Tea in Tang China: From Cultivated Shrubs to a Taxed Commodity: 8th–9th centuries · Chajing c. 760–780; tea tax 793, China: southern growing regions, the Yangtze basin and northern centres of consumption. Leaf processing, monasteries, merchants and state taxation connected tea-growing households with urban culture in Tang China.
Angkor: Khmer Water Management and Agricultural Landscapes: Ninth–fifteenth centuries · network growth and change, Angkor plain, near Siem Reap, Cambodia. Reservoirs and canals connected fields, settlements and temples. Their history encompasses labour, monsoon variability and gradual regional transformation.
Champa rice and Song agricultural change: 1012; 11th–13th centuries, Fujian and the Yangtze–Huai regions, China. Disseminating planting material widened farmers’ options; outcomes depended on water, labour and local cropping calendars.
Bali’s Subak: A Millennium of Cooperation over Water and Rice: 9th–11th centuries · early evidence; UNESCO inscription 2012, Bali, Indonesia; example: Jatiluwih and Catur Angga Batukaru landscape. Canals, temples and farmers’ agreements formed a system in which water allocation depended on cooperation extending beyond a single field.
Ifugao Terraces: Rice, Autonomy and Revised Dating: Sixteenth–eighteenth centuries · intensive rice expansion; settlement is older, Ifugao, Cordillera mountains, Luzon, Philippines. Archaeology revises terrace chronology, revealing local responses to colonialism, diverse farming and the enduring importance of water rights.
The Land Code of 1858: Agriculture and Rights in the Ottoman Empire: 1858 · further legislation and varied provincial practice in the later nineteenth century, Ottoman Empire; legislation in Istanbul and varied provincial implementation. The code organised cultivation, inheritance and transfers while retaining complex relationships among the state, possessors and communities.
Rubber: from Amazonia to Asian plantations: 1876–early 20th century, Brazil, Kew, Ceylon, Singapore and Malaya. Plant transfers, botanic gardens, growers’ knowledge and migrant labour created a new geography of rubber production.
The Bengal Famine: Rice, War and Access to Food: 1943–1944; commission report in 1945, Bengal, British India; now India and Bangladesh. The damaged 1942 crop, wartime restrictions, lost purchasing power and delayed relief in the catastrophe of rural Bengal.
Japan’s Land Reform, 1946–1950: From Tenants to Owner-Cultivators: 1946–1950 · principal programme; statutory safeguards in 1952, Japan under Allied occupation; decisions in Tokyo, local implementation. Government purchase and resale of farmland transformed property, incomes and rural power while retaining the family farm as the basic unit of cultivation.
Operation Flood: Cooperatives and India’s Dairy Transformation: 1970–1996 · earlier foundations: Kaira 1946, NDDB 1965, India: Anand in Gujarat and an expanding network of milk-producing areas and urban markets. Operation Flood connected smallholder procurement, processing, urban sales and animal husbandry services within a long-term development programme.