Add offer

Trade & exchange: history of agriculture

9 topics: Tea in Tang China: From Cultivated Shrubs to a Taxed Commodity; Medieval English Wool: Sheep, Monasteries and Trade; Kūmara in Aotearoa: Māori…

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.
Medieval English Wool: Sheep, Monasteries and Trade: Twelfth–fourteenth centuries · export duty from 1275, England; example: Fountains Abbey, Yorkshire. Sheep farming connected rural work with textile markets, merchant credit and royal revenue. The year 1275 marks an important stage in export taxation.
Kūmara in Aotearoa: Māori Gardens and Winter Reserves: From the thirteenth century · adaptation across later centuries, Aotearoa/New Zealand; Triangle Flat, Ōtuataua and Pūrākaunui. Māori adapted Polynesian crops to a seasonal climate through soil modification, storage and detailed knowledge of local environments.
The Vistula Grain Trade: Estates, River Transport and Gdańsk: Later 15th–17th centuries; political turning point in 1466, The Vistula basin, Gdańsk and Baltic routes to western Europe. Grain exports connected demesne farms, peasant households, river ports and merchants, with real social costs behind the granary-of-Europe image.
Breadfruit reaches Saint Vincent and Jamaica: 1793; Oceanian cultivation much earlier, Tahiti → Saint Vincent and Jamaica. The Providence expedition carried breadfruit to British Caribbean colonies. Plants previously selected in Oceania became part of local food traditions.
Buffalo elevators and bulk grain handling: 1842–1843; development in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Buffalo, Lake Erie, New York, USA. Dart and Dunbar’s enterprise connected mechanical grain lifting with port storage; later development involved railways, quality standards and labour organisation.
Chicago Board of Trade: Grain, Contracts and Market Rules: From 1848 · standardisation and oversight in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Chicago, Illinois, United States; agricultural hinterlands and international commerce. Quality grades, warehouse documents and futures contracts changed how grain was sold and how price exposure was distributed.
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.
Dunedin 1882: Frozen Meat Connects Farm and London: 1882 · first successful New Zealand shipment to Britain, Totara Estate, Port Chalmers and London. Refrigeration opened a distant market for meat, connecting sheep farming with railways, industrial works and ocean shipping.