Comments on: A noisy optimum

By: dustbubble

dustbubble — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 14:45:30 +0000

But you don’t need to dry and thresh the potatoes first…Ooh arr. The usual way was to rick it on staddles in just the same condition as it came off the field (ie damp in any reasonable person’s estimation) with the yummy ears to the middle. And hope it didn’t spontaneously combust after it was thatched. Then bit by bit bring it in, often just the ears, to dry out in the (relatively) warm dry and surprisingly large space above the circulation level of the house (ie the mud) as only the direst paupers would let the fire go out, even in “summer”. Or in hot-tub sized kilns dug into a bank. Which are a bit good at accidentally turning wet grain, which just sprouts regardless, into malt.
I’m on about their actual food here, the chunk exacted by the master was carted off and dealt with in a semi-industrialised manner, granaries, mills, coerced labour threshing it and all that. The proper feudal areas had to do the lot that way as it were agin the law to do yer own. But they weren’t about to start growing potatoes, as the landlord was growing grain for profit, (and probably still is). It’s in more marginal areas with crap (or no!) soil that the tenants get spuds shoved up them. That was the irish disaster. All the cornland was taken up by cashcrop and the labourers’ own subsistence holdings crammed onto basically useless land and told to get on with it.
And just one botched growing season = game over when you’re keeping potatoes, they’ve got a rubbish shelf-life, and can’t even be turned into biscuity things and kept. *mooches over to kitchen and extracts 5-year-old oatcake to nibble*

By: windy

windy — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 10:50:15 +0000

They are unchancy to store, heavy, have to be kept basically at ground level, in a countryside absolutely heaving with pigs and human pilferers. Grain can be kept in deep hidden silos or up in the roofspace, dry, for many years

But you don't need to dry and thresh the potatoes first...

By: John Emerson

John Emerson — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 10:32:52 +0000

We aren’t in a Malthusian subsistence situation now, not even globally, so agriculture doesn’t have to be conducted on a maximum-nutrition-per-acre basis. What I’ve said is only relevant to that point. (The “Diet for a Small Planet” people exaggerated the degree to which our situation is Malthusian now.)

As far as I know, however, from that point of view animal husbandry is only productive when utilizing unproductive land and when salvaging inedible vegetable products. By and large, in Malthusian circumstances agriculture is mixed, but with a very heavy imbalance toward vegetable foods. Animals raised are often draft animals (and an incidental source of food), and meat tends to be reserved for the rich or for festival occasions.

By: tom bri

tom bri — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 08:11:51 +0000

Hello John Emmerson,

The experience of several thousand years and the choices of farmers throughout that period suggest that animal agriculture adds, not subtracts calories.

I believe you are making an unrealistic comparison, between pure animal ag and pure vegetable. That almost never occurs. Both are integrated and add to the efficiency of the other. As an example, on our family farm we grow no animals, but every year part of the land is planted in forage crops which are sold to neighbors who raise cows.

Crop rotation is part of basic land management to insure fertile soil and to help control weeds and insects. Without a market for the forage this practice would be uneconomic and fewer farmers would do it, leading to higher chemical pest control and gradual loss of land fertility.

I hope I am not coming across as too argumentative here, but this issue touches one of my sore points. There is a lot of propaganda against animal agriculture that is simply based on lack of knowledge of farming, or on vegetarian propaganda.

By: dustbubble

dustbubble — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 14:40:13 +0000

The legend we were served up at school is that the french peasants (distinguished by writers since they were still "gauls" for their robust good sense) had to be tricked into thieving the wretched things from heavily guarded Govt. trial plots, all previous attempts to coerce them having run afoul of the hard french heads of these "scum".
They are unchancy to store, heavy, have to be kept basically at ground level, in a countryside absolutely heaving with pigs and human pilferers. Grain can be kept in deep hidden silos or up in the roofspace, dry, for many years, should (as happens, like this summer and the last, by us) the growing season be a drought, or nastier than actual winter. And you had better get them chitted and in the lazybeds by Lady Day, or you've lost every single one. Nothing, nada, not a sausage, left unsprouted. And if you've not had the shaws away and lifted them by moonlight, they'll poison you anyway. Light-shot. What a carry-on.
Barley, the staff of life since we took up this farming lark round here, is hardy well beyond wheat, won't be cast down by heavy rain, gives you a roof as well as a bannock. And so what if the year's so wet, it starts to rot in the ear before it ripens (I've seen this many times). Why, we shall ding it down anyway, sack it, let it sprout , and dry it with heat, for the sun never shines, so as it shall keep a lifetime, if it don't go 'steely'.
As the romans were puzzled to find us doing.

Then, even if it's raining (and how likely is that, now?) we can do this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZ6K03ovxCM

Hobbits keep narsty taters. We likes it, strong and tasty.

By: John Emerson

John Emerson — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 11:34:55 +0000

Tom Bri: yeah, in a very limited sense in terms of eating stuff inedible for humans, serving as draft animals, and providing leather, sinew, bone, wool, etc.

Animal food isn't necessary for nutrition though, except for a small amount for vitamin B12. Meateaters are bigger and stronger because they are more likely to be people who can afford to eat as much as they want.

In calories / protein per acre, as far as I know vegetable production is always better than pastoral production except when vergetable production is very difficult (arid areas and mountains). That was my primary point.

By: tom bri

tom bri — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 10:57:52 +0000

To John Emmerson,

I have to disagree with your comment 'I don't think that animal husbandry is ever a productive use of land in terms of calories-protein per acre.'

I worked some years in the third world in animal agriculture. Whenever given the opportunity small scale farmers will integrate animals into their farms. Animals increase efficiency in several ways, recycling inedible materials, providing essential raw materials, and through necessary nutrients in the diet.

These people are not stupid. They know that without animals they are so many steps closer to starvation, to say nothing of malnutrition.

By: razib

razib — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 18:51:29 +0000

What proportion of landowners were Brahmans, what proportion of Brahmans were wealthy, and what proportion of the whole population were Brahmans?

from wiki
In 1931 (the last Indian census to record caste), Brahmins accounted for 4.32% of the total population. Brahmins even in Uttar Pradesh, where they were most numerous, constituted just 9% of the recorded population. In Tamil Nadu they formed less than 3% and in Andhra Pradesh, less than 2%.

there is variation state by state. in kerala the brahmins had a lot of land given to them by the rulers but the british ended up expropriating a lot of it.

it is probably fair to say that most wealthy people were not brahmins (e.g., banias, chettiars and marwaris are all more focused on wealth). but a disproportionate number of the gentry were definitely brahmins (the rentier class if you will), and later the lucrative professions. but there is variation region by region.

By: John Emerson

John Emerson — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 18:34:09 +0000

I’m far beyond what I know. What proportion of landowners were Brahmans, what proportion of Brahmans were wealthy, and what proportion of the whole population were Brahmans? I’m not being rhetorical or snarky, this is an interesting question I’ve never thought about much.

By: razib

razib — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 16:20:16 +0000

hereditary nobility in Europe or landowners in China.

no. but gentry in many cases. in south india hindu kings gave large land grants to brahmins. in bengal hindu brahmins were the zamindars, absentee landlords.

By: John Emerson

John Emerson — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 16:00:32 +0000

We’re at the point where some empiricism is needed. I certainly don’t know about this. I don’t think that they had the status of, e.g., hereditary nobility in Europe or landowners in China.

By: razib

razib — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 11:48:29 +0000

they were neither very wealthy nor very powerful after approximately the Mughal conquest, and a lot of the ascetic sects were caste-independent rather than Brahman

hm. well, compared to the typical indian they were relatively well off. i have read that dumont emphasized their spiritual status as opposed to their material, but most brahmins were already engaged in secular enterprises by the mughal period.

By: John Emerson

John Emerson — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 11:23:18 +0000

Similarly with Confucians in China. The military, legalist, and other realistic schools of China are only now beginning to be appreciated.

I came away from Dumont thinking that the Brahmans were much less important than I had thought -- they were neither very wealthy nor very powerful after approximately the Mughal conquest, and a lot of the ascetic sects were caste-independent rather than Brahman. Dumont was probably more sympathetic to the Brahmans than he should have been, but I don't think that he overestimated them.

The civil-military war-peace split and the wealth-culture split are found in all advanced societies, differently conformed. Before the modern age the trade / capitalist class was always ranked low, but it always had an importance beyond its rank. The low rank given them was more suppressive than descriptive.

By: razib

razib — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 11:04:11 +0000

and yes, it was the terror about nightshade.

By: razib

razib — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 10:52:07 +0000

also, let me be totally frank, several scholars accuse of dumont of creating a brahmin-centric narrative because he relied mostly in the literature which brahmins provided him! see interrogating caste or castes of mind.

By: razib

razib — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 10:14:50 +0000

They seem to be a cultural elite. According to Dumont

be careful about overemphasizing dumont. some scholars point out that brahmins were tops in the system in part because they were the elites that the british generally sought. but some of the ethnographic data suggests that the elite to emulate is contingent upon local circumstances. in places where hindu military elites still dominated lower castes often had myths they were fallen kshatriyas, not brahmins. in places where banias were ascendant (usually gujarat) they were emulated. in much of india right before the british came the ashraf muslims had marginalized the kshatriyas so that brahmins were the tops in the hindu hierarchy (the marthas were themselves only recently kshatriyaized so they weren't suitable candidates for emulation since they were themselves new elites).

By: windy

windy — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 09:29:23 +0000

Don't forget that potatoes are a nightshade, most of which are deadly poison.

Yep- the popular explanation to initial potato-avoidance in Europe is that many peasants did try them, but tried to eat the fruit and/or leaves by mistake and got sick. I don't know whether there are good sources for this or if this is an explanation tacked on afterwards, but I guess it might have seemed more sensible to eat the fruit than the weird root-bulbs.

In Finland, potatoes did not replace grain as a staple as much as a kind of small turnip, which was definitely a good trade in terms of energy content. And potatoes were better for making booze...

By: Keith

Keith — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 09:22:10 +0000

Potatoes are not described in the Bible, and I thought I read somewhere that it was the reason for the slow spread of this and other crops from the New World. Religion was treated as a cumulative knowledge base that helped people successfully navigate life’s challenges. Eating healthful, non-poisonous foods was important and the unknown potatoes were suspect.

By: J

Sun, 28 Oct 2007 07:38:15 +0000

Numbers… What do you mean potatoes have more calorific value than grain? kCal/kg?
The advantage of potato is that it is possible to grow it where cereal will not, cold and wet climates. And needs almost no cultivation – some hoeing and thats all.
I think you are giving too much weight to subjective reasons, people are avid experimenters everywhere and adopt good crops and feedstuffs in no time.
Agricultural extension (invented in the USA) has been suspended all over the world because of needless.

By: Caledonian

Caledonian — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 07:27:57 +0000

The doctrine of the similiarity of forms was still widespread among the common people. Potatoes look vaguely like they have a horrible skin disease, and reportedly people though they caused leprosy – for the same reason they thought lungwort could cure lung ailments.

Supposedly, Catherine the Great came up with a clever way to get the peasants to accept the new food source, after they had refused to grow and eat them. She arranged for the potatoes to be planted in large, fenced fields, with signs declaring the contents to be the property of the nobles and threatening dire consequences for theft. A short while later enough people had experienced the illicit tubers that potato was considered a national dish.