Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations - Kootenay Local Agricultural Society

The contrast between how the Pueblos and the Incas treated their dirt is
but another chapter in the broader story of how the rise of agriculture set
off a perpetual race to figure out how to feed growing populations by continuously
increasing crop yields. Sometimes cultures figured out a way to
muddle through without depleting soil productivity, often they did not.
A common lesson of the ancient empires of the Old and New Worlds is
that even innovative adaptations cannot make up for a lack of fertile soil
to sustain increased productivity. As long as people take care of their land,
the land can sustain them. Conversely, neglect of the basic health of the
soil accelerated the downfall of civilization after civilization even as the
harsh consequences of erosion and soil exhaustion helped push Western
society from Mesopotamia to Greece, Rome, and beyond.
Efforts to feed the world today often include calls for a cultural revolution,
a new agrotechnological revolution, or a political revolution to redistribute
land to subsistence farmers. Less widely known is how, after centuries
of agricultural decline, a preindustrial agricultural revolution began
in the still-fertile and revitalized fields of Western Europe, setting the stage
for the social, cultural, and political forces that forged colonial powers and
shaped our modern global society.
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