‘Raised Bed’ Agriculture in Pre-Columbian Central and South America: A Traditional Solution to the Problem of ‘Sustainable’ Farming Systems?

Redclift, Michael

doi:10.1080/01448765.1987.9755125

Cited by 5 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 2 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…But the Spanish vented their hatred, jealousy, and Christianity and buried both the chinapas and Aztec Mexico. In one blow, the Spanish conquistadors destroyed Mexico's prosperous and sacred agriculture (the chinapas and terrace cultivation) and Mexican culture (Redclift 1987).On their ruins, they built the hacienda or large farm and manned it with the slave labor of the surviving indigenous people. Industrialized agriculture was the harvest of hacienda.…”

Section: Ecological Wisdom In Peasant Farmingmentioning

confidence: 99%

The democratic and sacred nature of agriculture

Vallianatos

2011

Environ Dev Sustain

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Sustainable' agriculture is a relative recent invention. It is a salvage operation designed to undo some of the harm of agribusiness, which nearly wiped out farming as a way of life. Sustainable agriculture tries to restore methods of farming and values that satisfy present needs for food without compromising the food for future generations. Sustainable farming, however, remains experimental and on the fringes of society and science. It includes all kinds of farming practiced by peasants, small-scale family farmers, organic farmers as well as large farmers. In what follows, I am showing, first, farming is or becomes sustainable when two things prevail: First, it is democratic, spread throughout the land in the form of family farming while the difference in size among farms is modest at best. Second, farming is sustainable when it draws its inspiration and methods not merely from the most advanced ecological science but from ancient agrarian cultures. I briefly highlight the case of ancient Greek farming as having the virtues of sustainability: that of equity and democracy. In our times, however, agribusiness and animal farming fail the criteria of sustainability.

show abstract

Section: Ecological Wisdom In Peasant Farmingmentioning

confidence: 99%

The democratic and sacred nature of agriculture

Vallianatos

2011

Environ Dev Sustain

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…For example, in the Aztec empire, we find a farming model organised around chinampas or raised gardens (constituted by alternating layers of mud and decayed vegetable matter). This approach -which could be an exciting thing to experiment with and possibly contains elements in common with the methodology of Hugelkultur (a raised mound comprising various forms of vegetable matter with both quick and slow nutrient release, and differential exposure to light) -seems to have been invented by preimperial societies but then been taken over and generalised by the centralised state (Calnek, 1972;Redclift, 1987;Smith, 1996). Many forms of 'traditional' agriculture may thus represent a compromise between the two modes of organisation (centralist and emergent) to which we referred earlier.…”

Section: Where Capitalism Made Things Worsementioning

confidence: 99%

Sustainable Food Systems

2019

Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…Of these, raised bed cultivation (mounding and ridging) has received the least amount of attention. Until the1960s, discoveries of large numbers of Pre-Columbian raised beds throughout the Americas stimulated interest in this topic (Denevan, 1970;Denevan and Turner, 1974;Redclift, 1987). The best-known examples of raised bed systems are found at Xochimilco near Mexico City in Mexico and surrounding Lake Titicaca in the Andean countries of Peru and Bolivia, and many attempts have been made to recreate ancient agroecosystems for modern agricultural use since the 1970s (Boucher et al, 1983;Erickson, 1988Erickson, , 1992Crews and Gliessman, 1991).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Review of the high bed–low ditch system as an alternative to lowland paddy in tropical and subtropical Asia

Zhao,

Luo,

Zhang

2024

Front. Sustain. Food Syst.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Many forms of traditional raised bed systems could be found around the world. Several of them have been identified as Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) sites by Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Unlike traditional raised bed systems with similar structures in the Americas, the high bed–low ditch (HBLD) system in tropical and subtropical Asia, which is originated and developed from rice production, has been playing an important role in enhancing food security and maintaining farmer livelihood for centuries. Moreover, products provided by HBLD system are not only important for the livelihood of the local farmers, but also important for people living in the nearby towns and cities especially for vegetable and fruit supply. In this system, the ditches or sunken beds can be used to lower the groundwater table, retain nutrients and soil particles washed from the bed, grow rice or aquatic vegetables, and raise fish or shrimp. The HBLD system can also help to reduce salinity in coastal lowlands due to the presence of ditches. The raised beds can be used to grow various upland crops. Compared with rice monocropping, the adoption of HBLD system significantly improves the cropping intensity, productivity, employment, and income of farmers. Famers’ long-term practices fully demonstrate that this system is a type of sustainable agriculture with strong adaptability to the changes of natural environment. However, it should also be noted that the large-scale development of HBLD systems is not simply dependent on natural conditions, but is also determined by specific socioeconomic factors, such as good transportation facilities, a well market system, and a sufficient supply of labor. As a model of equilibrium between food production and high levels of biodiversity maintenance, the HBLD system is an important agricultural heritage system with global significance, and it should be well preserved and utilized in new ways to realize its important multiple functions under conditions of rapid urbanization in lowland and coastal regions.

show abstract

‘Raised Bed’ Agriculture in Pre-Columbian Central and South America: A Traditional Solution to the Problem of ‘Sustainable’ Farming Systems?

Cited by 5 publications

References 2 publications

The democratic and sacred nature of agriculture

The democratic and sacred nature of agriculture

Sustainable Food Systems

Review of the high bed–low ditch system as an alternative to lowland paddy in tropical and subtropical Asia

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About