Some quotes from wikipedia to start us off:

“Agriculture involving domestication of plants and animals was developed at least 10,000 years ago, although some forms of agriculture such as forest gardening and fire-stick farming date back even earlier to prehistoric times. Agriculture has undergone significant developments since the time of the earliest cultivation. The Fertile Crescent of Western Asia, Egypt, and India were sites of the earliest planned sowing and harvesting of plants that had previously been gathered in the wild. Independent development of agriculture occurred in northern and southern China, Africa’s Sahel, New Guinea and several regions of the Americas. Agricultural practices such as irrigation, crop rotation, fertilizers, and pesticides were developed long ago but have made great strides in the past century. The Haber-Bosch method for synthesizing ammonium nitrate represented a major breakthrough and allowed crop yields to overcome previous constraints.

In the past century, agriculture has been characterized by enhanced productivity, the replacement of human labor by synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, selective breeding, and mechanization. The recent history of agriculture has been closely tied with a range of political issues including water pollution, biofuels, genetically modified organisms, tariffs, and farm subsidies. In recent years, there has been a backlash against the external environmental effects of mechanized agriculture, and increasing support for the organic movement and sustainable agriculture.”

Wikipedia has always served me well for assessing the common viewpoint of a subject; Though their data is rarely what I would consider reliable, it is often useful in illustrating how little we agree on important matters of science and history.

The fact that no coherent theory for the development or “invention” of agriculture exists is evidenced by the wide swath of speculation on an open source forum like wiki.

You would think we’d have figured this out by now.

The actual invention of agriculture is not the focus of this discussion. The meaning of this is established in ancient Sumeria around 5500 bc, and wikipedia spells that out too:

“Intensive farming allows a much greater density of population than can be supported by hunting and gathering, and allows for the accumulation of excess product for off-season use, or to sell/barter. The ability of farmers to feed large numbers of people whose activities have nothing to do with agriculture was the crucial factor in the rise of standing armies.”

This is the point today: The crucial factor in the rise of standing armies.

Though it doesn’t leap off the page from amid a pile of anthropological jargon, this is a very strong statement which should resonate with anyone who is against world wars and standing armies. They cannot exist without industrial agriculture.

It seems odd to me that the consensus viewpoint associates these two things so closely in ancient times, but does not follow up to the results of that course in modern times.

Maybe the crucial link here is that we called it Sumer and it’s capital city was Ur, in 6000 bc.

Now it is called Iraq, and it’s capital city is Baghdad.

Same country. Origin of agriculture.

These days, it would be a funny place to invent agriculture, as it’s all desert.

In point of fact, I’ve always found it strange that people would choose to call such a barren and inhospitable environment “home” for so many centuries.

In this region called “the fertile crescent” you will find a lot of desert, and a history of blood, death, hatred and war, for thousands of years. These two factors are related by one common thread: agriculture.

In ancient times, the land of Egypt was known as Khemet to the Arabs.

Here is the origin of the English word alchemy, from Arabic Al-Khemia,

Or, “as it is done in Egypt.”

Khemet is Arabic for “the black land” and Egypt was called such for it’s rich and fertile soil. Of which, almost no evidence remains today. A small region around the edge of the Nile is certainly not enough to merit a title like the black land.

Out of Egypt came the dynastic lineage of pharaohs, who used this agricultural base to plunder and conquer untold riches. Next, the Greeks and Romans adopted this same principle of empire building based on industrial agriculture, and were the first in recorded history to expand towns into their current incarnation of hydraulic society.

Today, we follow the same path as civilizations that left sprawling uninhabitable deserts in their wake. And we leave the same legacy of war for our children.

But the idea of war itself has evolved, and with it, a new enemy: Nature.

In the years after World War One, numerous chemical companies who had geared up to produce large quantities of nitrate for munitions found themselves with a lot of a product there was no market for.

Coincidentally, at this same time it was discovered that nitrates could be used as plant fertilizer. The term “fertilizer bomb” is an interesting example of our turning material used for bomb making into agriculture coming full circle.

But as far as the soil ecosystem is concerned, ammonium nitrate is a bomb. It is a potent chemical weapon that destroys beneficial organisms like earthworms, mycorrhizae, native plants, and others too numerous to list.

Proponents of chemical agriculture have always defended their methods by claiming that productivity and efficiency has increased. This is not true by any means of measurement.

The speed of production has increased, and the volume. That does not equal an improvement in efficiency. If the volume of input was decreased and the volume output increased, that would be an increase in efficiency.

In the short term view, it was a great plan.

Inputs and outputs increased simultaneously, and rapidly, which admittedly did create a massive increase in total production. So massive in fact, that the US government paid a large number of farmers NOT to grow corn on their land, and in some cases to destroy already existing crops.

This was done in order to control the value of the food, for if the value drops dramatically from increased production, the market will fail. Something else always has to occur to balance the market, otherwise the corn farmers would suddenly find themselves out of business with a massive surplus of product. What happened was the wholesale slaughter of independent farms, and their replacement by modern mechanized agribusiness.

Corn farmers have ever since been puppets, controlled by a regular influx of government subsidy money, to maintain their otherwise lifeless enterprise. There was never such a high demand for yellow dent corn in the first place: it’s one of the least nutritious plants in the grass family, it rapes topsoil of nitrogen, and 93% of its kernel is indigestible. Meaning that it’s only real value in the marketplace is as a starch to be processed into various different products, such as corn syrup and ethanol.

Those two products keep the market for corn afloat, while demand is artificially created by marketing, and consent is manufactured by economic controls.

That’s all pretty grim. Do I have anything happy to say about agriculture today? Let me think a moment… Oh yeah! HEMP!

“Hemp is used for many varieties of products including the manufacture of cordage of varying tensile strength, durable clothing and nutritional products. The bast fibers can be used in 100% hemp products, but are commonly blended with other organic fibers such as flax, cotton or silk, for apparel and furnishings, most commonly at a 55%/45% hemp/cotton blend. The inner two fibers of hemp are more woody and are more often used in non-woven items and other industrial applications, such as mulch, animal bedding and litter. The oil from the fruits (“seeds”) oxidizes (commonly, though inaccurately, called “drying”) to become solid on exposure to air, similar to linseed oil, and is sometimes used in the manufacture of oil-based paints, in creams as a moisturizing agent, for cooking, and in plastics. Hemp seeds have been used in bird seed mix as well. A survey in 2003 showed that more than 95% of hemp seed sold in the EU was used in animal and bird feed. Hemp seed is also used as a fishing bait.In modern times hemp is used for industrial purposes including paper, textiles, clothing, biodegradable plastics, construction (as with Hempcrete and insulation), body products, health food and bio-fuel.

Hemp seeds can be eaten raw, ground into a meal, sprouted, made into hemp milk (akin to soy milk), prepared as tea, and used in baking. The fresh leaves can also be consumed in salads. Products include cereals, frozen waffles, hemp milk ice cream, hemp tofu, and nut butters. A few companies produce value added hemp seed items that include the seed oils, whole hemp grain (which is sterilized by law in the United States, where they import it from China and Canada), de-hulled hemp seed (the whole seed without the mineral rich outer shell), hemp flour, hemp cake (a by-product of pressing the seed for oil) and hemp protein powder.

Approximately 44% of the weight of hemp seed is edible oils, containing about 80% essential fatty acids (EFAs); e.g., linoleic acid,omega-6 (LA, 55%), alpha-linolenic acid, omega-3 (ALA, 22%), in addition to gamma-linolenic acid, omega-6 (GLA, 1–4%) and stearidonic acid, omega-3 (SDA, 0–2%). Proteins (including edestin) are the other major component (33%). Hemp seed’s amino acid profile is “complete” when compared to more common sources of proteins such as meat, milk, eggs and soy. Hemp protein contains all nutritionally significant amino acids, including the 9 essential ones adult bodies cannot produce. Proteins are considered complete when they contain all the essential amino acids in sufficient quantities and ratios to meet the body’s needs. The proportions of linoleic acid and alpha-linolenic acid in one tablespoon (15 ml) per day of hemp oil easily provides human daily requirements for EFAs.

Hemp can be used as a “mop crop” to clear impurities out of wastewater, such as sewage effluent, excessive phosphorus from chicken litter, or other unwanted substances or chemicals. Eco-technologist Dr. Keith Bolton from Southern Cross University in Lismore, New South Wales, Australia, is a leading researcher in this area. Hemp is being used to clean contaminants at the Chernobyl nuclear disaster site. This is known as phytoremediation – the process of clearing radioisotopes as well as a variety of other toxins from the soil, water, and air.”

I’m sorely tempted to just copy and paste the entire wikipedia page on hemp… But you can go read it here if you’re not convinced yet: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemp

Hemp is the best crop on Earth, hands down, no contest. No competition. After that short list, maybe you’re thinking, “Is there anything hemp can’t do?”

The answer?

Be grown on American soil.

Where once our dollar was printed on hemp paper.

And in the image above, left side, you can see a couple of farmers harvesting a crop that looks suspiciously like hemp, on this dollar which was likely printed on the same.

Agriculture has given us this plant, which is a wonder of nature, and can be used to make almost everything in our day to day lives, but it is a federal crime to grow it, because the DEA and FDA can’t tell the difference between this plant:

And this:

If an organization that calls itself the Food and Drug Administration can’t tell the damn difference between food and drugs, one might wonder what the hell we’re paying them for.

Their job is to ensure profits for major corporations, not to ensure the health and safety of the American people.

If they were actually representing their constituents, they would concede to the many farmers who would love to grow hemp, and are mad as hell that they’re not allowed. Myself included. In a nation that proclaims freedom of religion for all, there is one more telling argument against modern agriculture, and it is this:

Genesis 1:29:

Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.”

And then god went on to say:

