Fundamental grain staples
Bloomberg recently ran an article (Birdseed turned superfood may help curb India’s diabetes scourge) on India’s attempts to increase the production of millet to combat a substantial increase in diabetes. According to the article, the incidence of diabetes has increased fivefold since 1980 and is one of the most critical health risks in India. The increase, say authors Ganesh Ragarajan and Saritha Rai, is directly related to agricultural improvements in the “green revolution” of the 20th century. Increased productivity in the farming of wheat and rice as well as in the processing of those two grains have resulted in a increased consumption of refined grains that increase blood sugar which leads to diabetes.
I am completely unqualified to offer an opinion on that. If there has been a dramatic increase in the average blood sugar of the average Indian because of the increased availability of refined rice and wheat then that represents a problem. On the other hand, given India’s demographics and the productivity of their agricultural sector in the 1950s, improvements in fertilizer, seeds, and processing also helped head off massive starvation and malnutrition. And yes, I recognize that any change in something as fundamental as a basic grain production is likely to have consequences that weren’t expected.
What I do know is that this the fourth encounter I’ve had in the past couple of months that touches on the production of fundamental grains. What do I mean by fundamental grains? In Cuisine and Empire: Cooking in World History Rachel Laudan describes the transitions between hunter/gather societies and initial agricultural societies, and then how those agricultural societies evolved. In all cases, the transition was based on the cultivation of grain but that grain was different in different places and led to different ways that cooking and food evolved. In the Middle East, barley was cultivated first and that yielded to wheat. In central Asia, it was a mixture of barley and millet and that also gave way to wheat (detect a pattern here?). In China, millet was the dominant grain around 2000 BCE. These grains all carry different implications.
Over time and place, wheat became a symbol of high cuisine in many different locations, including Europe. Wheat (white) bread, white gruel, and wheat cakes were all typical markers of high cuisine while barley bread and millet porridge were foods eaten in what Laudan calls “humble” cuisine. In all of these places, though, bread and porridge/gruel were the foundation of all nutrition, with meat, fish, and vegetables added on top as wealth and geography saw fit. and just to be really clear, we are talking about the period from the very beginnings of agriculture to about 1500 BCE.
So getting back on track, I was rereading parts of Laudan’s book for my posts on oil and came across an extensive section on the transition of Chinese cooking from a cuisine based on millet to one based on rice (and wheat). At the same time, I currently reading Tom Standage’s An Edible History of Humanity, a fascinating series of looks at how changes in food supply and production have changed the course of human history. The beginning of the book examines in greater detail than Laudan the transition from hunter/gatherer societies to sedentary agricultural societies, but later chapters look at how changes in technology (for example, discovering how to synthesize ammonia) led to changes in fertilizer technology that led to the green revolution alluded to above.
Finally, I also remembered a story from the Economist I shared a few weeks back (here) that discussed changes in the fundamental grains of China and Africa and how that might have an impact on global trade. As China becomes more affluent, it is turning towards wheat and away from rice as the basic staple grain. This is not insignificant, as the agricultural economy of China has been based for years on the cultivation of rice. If this does change in a major way, that will not only affect Chinese cuisine, but labor patterns, land use, trade policy, food processing and distribution, and a host of environmental issues (rice requires more water but less nitrogen/fertilizer than wheat).
The impact in Africa is potentially greater. Since the beginning of the agricultural era, sub-Saharan Africa has not been as successful as other parts of the world in developing a self-sustaining agricultural economy. If, however, through improved technology, rice cultivation becomes a staple in large parts of Africa, that has the potential to be transformative. However, it will be transformative in more places than just Africa. The same environmental, labor, and trade issues I mentioned when looking at China will move front and center, but in Africa there is the additional factor of the continent’s potential as a developing nation.
We are obviously too close to current events to know how India’s targeting of millet or China’s preference shift from rice to wheat or Africa’s cultivation of rice will affect the global economy, let alone the planet’s environment. On the other hand, even a cursory look (like the one I’m engaged in at the moment) at the history of food over the last 4,000 years or so suggests that the fundamental grain staple of a people has a tremendous impact on it’s culture, economy, and interactions with the rest of the world. Further, if that staple changes, it produces fundamental changes in every aspect of those people’s lives.