Author Tom Standage Talks Food on the Silk Road
Wednesday, January 06 1:41 pm
Tom Standage, author of An Edible History of Humanity, will be one of the featured speakers at the Museum’s January 14 panel Curry Economics: Food as a Driving Force of Economic Development. He recently answered some questions about the upcoming talk, discussing food’s effect on industrialization, the “green revolution” and the Silk Road.
Food trade routes such as the ancient Silk Road have always been important networks for the transmission of ideas, science, and culture. What are some of foods that have spurred international trade?
The classical example is spices. The term generally refers to non-perishable foodstuffs, found only in some parts of the world, that have a high value-to-weight ratio: pepper, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg and so on. The fact that they are non-perishable and very valuable means they can be traded over long distances. Their value stems from their scarcity and from their mysterious origins — spices were thought to have magical properties. The network of spice-trading routes, including the Silk Road, was the largest trade network in the ancient world. Europeans, motivated by a desire to find the sources of the spices and cut out the Arab middlemen, revealed the true geography of the world, opening up sea routes to the Americas and around the tip of Africa to the Indian Ocean.
Is there a contemporary example?
Countries including Argentina and New Zealand have industrialized on the back of food exports to other countries, and Kenya does a roaring trade exporting exotic vegetables to Europe. Fans of “local food” oppose this, of course. But restricting food trade is tantamount to denying opportunities for economic development to many countries.
You’re speaking at the Museum on January 14 as part of a panel on “Curry Economics: Food as a Driving Force of Economic Development.” Can you give an example of how food has driven industrialization?
Britain was the first country to industrialize, and food played a crucial role. Agricultural productivity increased in the 18th century, liberating people from the land to work in small-scale manufacturing. New farming techniques and crops also led to a population boom. This in turn prompted the clearance of coppice land so that it could be used to produce food rather than wood for fuel. Britain could do this because it had abundant coal. The need to pump water out of coal mines led to the development of the steam engine, which was then put to work in manufacturing. Voilá: industrial revolution.
What bearing does food production have on developing nations today?
An industrialized nation is one in which most people are not farmers. In a typical African country, 80 percent of people are farmers. In America the figure is 0.5 percent. Improving the efficiency of food production is a pre-requisite for industrialization. Most recently the industrialization of China and India has been made possible by huge improvements in farming productivity.
What do mean when you talk about the “green revolution” of the 20th century?
This refers to the high-yield varieties of wheat and rice that emerged in the 1960s-70s. They produce far more food than previous varieties, but only if they are supplied with enough water and fertilizer. The trouble is that water is increasingly scarce and making fertilizer requires lots of energy. So the green revolution probably averted huge famines in the 1970s, but at the cost of environmental problems now. The challenge for agriculture in the 21st century is to maintain yields while reducing inputs of water and chemicals.
What’s your favorite example from your book, An Edible History of Humanity, of how a food has influenced a society?
The Black Death entered Europe in the 14th century on spice ships from the Black Sea ports, at the western terminus of the Silk Road. At the time people thought spices protected you against infection. But Europe’s love of spices was, arguably, to blame for its spread.
How do you think food will influence human societies next?
The big challenge now is to produce enough food to feed the world’s population, which will peak at around nine billion in the middle of the century. This is complicated by climate change, which is already shifting agricultural patterns and the availability of water. For most people in the world, climate change will manifest itself as a food crisis. The nightmare scenario is that this triggers wars over land and water for agriculture. So we’re at a fork in the road. Either we solve these problems, and then feeding everyone will get easier after the population peak, or we don’t, which doesn’t bear thinking about.
