Food Frontiers and International Relations - Columbian Exchange - Essay Example

Running head: Food Frontiers and International Relations Title of Paper Your Name Institution Name Food Frontiers and International Relations In 1492, after the voyage of Christopher Columbus, the exchange of unknown plants, animals and diseases among the Old World and New World that took place is called Columbian Exchange. Columbian Exchange generated a great revolution among old and new world due to the elements of biological, ecological and cultural exchange. The exchange also included a large number of crops, goods, human populations (including slaves and labors) and ideas among Amerindians and Europeans that greatly affected the culture, lifestyle, trade and food habits of both the regions that’s why this is called Great Exchange. The Columbian Exchange effects resulted in an impact which ranged to every society of the world and as a result of this great revolution both positive and negative results were gained by the societies. For example some of the new societies in America were hit hard by the incoming diseases from the Old World. While some of the crops that were abundant in Europe, such as maize, potatoes, and peanuts were taken to the Southeast Asia and West Africa. It provided remarkable economic opportunities to both worlds and thus they were able to enjoy a lot of benefits in almost all sectors of trade. Due to a lot of diversity in plants and animal species and many differences among cultures, both of worlds were attracted towards each other. This in a way was good because the things which were not found in the old world were taken from the new world and vice versa. Both the worlds found new avenues where they could promote their products. From large periods of time, these worlds’ remains isolated from each other thus specialized in things where were restrictive to their regions. The created a kind of diversity when they came together. An example of this can be taken as the flora and fauna that is found in America and Europe. Europeans introduced new variety of foods to their native country, ones which they brought back from the new world. They then provided more quality food to their nation by providing a variety of tastes to the local people. The recipes that were being used were then transformed to include new ingredients and completely new recipes altogether were introduced in the menus. This gave a new direction to their life habits; of the plants that became popular amongst the Europeans potatoes squash, maize, and beans stand out the most. Europeans introduced new vegetables and fruits such as wheat, rice, bananas, sugar, and wine grapes and they also introduced new domesticated animals to the New World such as horses, cattle, pigs, sheep, and fowl. Some of the European plants and animal’s products have gone on to affects the diet patterns of the whole world. For example wheat, meat, milk, cheese, eggs, sugar, garlic, onions, citrus fruits are now popular worldwide. Verily this exchange did not only influence America and most of the European regions but also the whole world. It has been said that before the Columbian Exchange, there were no were no oranges in Florida, no bananas in Ecuador, no paprika in Hungary, no tomatoes in Italy, no coffee in Colombia, no pineapples in Hawaii, no rubber trees in Africa, no cattle in Texas, no donkeys in Mexico, no chili peppers in Thailand and India, no cigarettes in France and no chocolate in Switzerland. Most of the plants which were exchanged among the New World and Old World were not able to adapt to the new climate thus to save those plants in the new environment some genetic transformation had been conducted on the various species of the plants. Most of the American plants became more populated in the whole world and provided the new variety of diet such as wheat, olives, and wine and Maize and beans prospered well in the America. Tomatoes and chili peppers easily sustain in the new atmosphere. While most of other plant species which survive very difficultly in the New world, some of these are squash, sweet potatoes, or prickly pear cactus, century or agaves plant. Due to the similarity in the original habitat and the new habitat some of the plants did not face any adverse effects on their growth and some the plants grew in the same rate as in their native land such as the potato which later one went to become a popular vegetable all over the world and successfully grew in cold climates and high altitudes of Northern Europe. The potato also became the source for more innovative dishes, and used as additional ingredient in traditional food of Europeans. Indigenous people can not be defined in a single term. While according to the Columbian Exchange, they can be defined as “the pre-Columbian inhabitants of the America,” indigenous people are also called aborigines, aboriginal people, native people, first people and autochthonous. Most of the indigenous people were linked with agriculture, some of them were hunter-gatherers. Indigenous people of America introduced agricultural endowment to the world. Such as, from many years indigenous people of America had the knowledge of breeding and artificial selection in plants and they cultivated different varieties of various species. For example maize was bred from wild grasses. Indigenous people grew fruits trees very near to their villages and towns and they introduced a highly demandable food variety that is now famous in the whole world. Their most commonly known products are chia, cassava, maize, squash, the pinto bean, phaseolus beans including most common beans, tepary beans and lima beans, potatoes, tomato, , peanuts, avocados, cocoa beans (vanilla, pineapples, strawberries, Peppers , sunflower, rubber, chicle, brazil wood, seeds, tobacco, coca, cotton and manioc and. Boyer et al., (2009) found the worldwide exchange of food products enriched human diets and made it possible for enormous populations to grow. Today, nearly 60 per cent of all food crops worldwide trace their roots to the Native American garden. In this present time, in some parts of America indigenous natives still exist for example in Bolivia, Peru, Paraguay, Mexico, Guatemala, Colombia, and Ecuador regions. Most of the indigenous people adopted the western lifestyle while some of them maintain their culture, religion, social organizations as they were in the past and some of them also live now in isolated regions. The European colonization took place in the shape of large numbers that migrated towards America. There was a great difference between the people of both the regions i.e. in their lifestyle, culture, beliefs, food habits etc. so that both of them influenced each other but these differences aroused various conflicts among them. Europeans didn’t want to affect the native population of America but this was not in their control, however, to combat this problem they did introduce many antibiotics to The New World and also introduced new forms of food to enhance the nutrition of the indigenous people by providing new technology to them. The New world was greatly inspired from effective technology of Europeans and that became one of the biggest reasons why they became willing to allow the Europeans into their state. Indigenous people also had their own techniques to dealing with various parts of life and performed their task in their own styles as they experienced from many decades. Both Old World and New World exchanged their ideas not just in improving skillful technologies but also by exchaning their tradition, thoughts, religion, and code of conducts, ethics, dresses, language and much more. The transfer and acceptance of new things is not an easy task and this exchange developed after a long period of time because most people were used to their own traditions and their normal way of life and could not adjust to these new ideas. More or less people always assume that their way of life is the way everyone should live. They cannot easily accept change or innovation. Most people believe that their traditions are superior to all else. And although the indigenous people were open to the new innovations that the Europeans brought with them, it was the diseases that came along with those innovations which scared them off. This was in fact the main reason for much of the resistance against the Europeans. One of the reasons for the spread of various diseases was exchange of domesticated animals; these animals, once set loose, went about and spread the many diseases and germs amongst Native Americans that’s why a number of diseases spread in a very high ratio. These diseases lead to high instability in the New World and conflicts with the Europeans, and even within the tribes themselves. Indigenous people were the worst hit by the diseases of the Europeans; half of the Indigenous people were killed by smallpox because they had no such immunity for it. As a result of the Columbian Exchange indigenous people preferred to remain isolated from Old World population. Some research also indicates that approximately 90% to 96% of their population died due to these European diseases, even most of the whole colonies of indigenous people died from the adverse kinds of new migrated diseases. For example smallpox, syphilis and measles wiped out half of the entire population. Of the European settlers, most of the people migrated from both ends of the hemisphere; however, it wasn’t jus the willing immigrants that came but also a large number of slaves that were made to migrate by force. The slavery system was already present in America and was a part of their tradition whereby most native people captured other members of the tribes by force. As we know the native population of America was greatly affected due to various Europeans diseases so in compensation of the population that they lost they began slave trade and imported many Africans. They not only trade the African slaves while also captured poor Europeans thus these kinds of issues originated several wars among them. Crosby describes this further when he tells of how the with the influx of Africans came in parts of their flora and fauna with them, including African rice, okra, yams, black-eyed peas, millets, sorghum, sesame, and the pathogens that cause yellow fever and malaria. Coffee came from Africa, although not in slave ships. Africans also brought their highly effective techniques of growing rice and their not so effective means of healing yellow fever and malaria suffers (Crosby 2003). The Columbian Exchange played very important part in food production and its trade among Old World and New World that ultimately enhanced their standards of living. As far as, human population increased mostly in America due to the interest of Europeans therefore, many forests and green places cleaned out that led erosion of land and extinction of many plants and animals. The Columbian Exchange not only provided great opportunities to both New World and Old World while in comparison of these advantages, they faced a lot of crisis due to settlement of entirely new population in their native regions. Indigenous people of both the World’s were stranger for each other, all of them belongs to the same species but their living style, habits, attitudes, interests, culture were totally different from each other, and these differences were the cause of various conflicts among them. Safety of life is the priority of all living things similarly how could new evolved colonies of Europeans ensure to the indigenous people of America that they were not coming there to harm them? Thus many tribes of indigenous people of America didn’t easily accept the Europeans who settled at various regions of America in the form of colonies. This distrust was the main reason many tribes of indigenous people started anti-colonials movements to finish the Europeans colonies and such kind of anti Europeans movements erupted in full on fights between the people of both the New World and the Old World. Some tribes of indigenous people never interact with European civilization and preferred to remain isolated from everyone except their native population while the new bringing generations after a hundreds of years merged with the Europeans because they were willing to accept new things from them, as a result of this positive attitude of such indigenous people’s tribes, peace and betterment in society took place but this was the result of many sacrifices from both of the worlds after passing through the thousand of years struggle for peaceful life in these regions. As a result of Columbian Exchange, Europeans and indigenous people of America exchanged food, livestock, and culture, which gave mutual benefit to both interacting Worlds. Europeans brought many animals and unique kind of materials such as horse, gunpowder, and the Catholic Church to the New discovered America, whereas the indigenous people of America brought new species of plants, new variety of food, new forms of game into the Europe.  Some of the exchanged plants, animals and other materials badly affect the whole world such as gunpowder and tobacco. The third main negative affect of Europeans on American’s World was the imposed religion practices on them to become this New World civilized, but these practices badly destroyed many of the indigenous people territories for example in one of the article about Columbian exchange in weuropeanhistory.suite101.com (2009) the conquistadors brought priests with them and established missions such as St. Augustine, San Diego and San Antonio. The Spanish also brought African slaves to work on sugar plantations. Columbian exchange is one of the examples of frontiers exchange. The countries which are very close to each other, they can easily trade through their common boarders or any other ways which are nearest for them. When the Columbus found a way to enter in the new world then it lead a great revolution in all the parts of the world and not any part of the world is exist now which is not effected by this Columbian exchange. Now, the whole world becomes a global village and communication system is in the hands of the people, all the people of the world can easily communicate with any other person who lives in any part of the world, distances become very short due to fast communication vehicles. Especially, due to the fast growing internet and a lot of updated world wide webs and many other services are now available for establishing contacts and exchange of information. That’s why in the present time international relations has a great importance and especially all the neighboring countries want to have a stronger relationship with their frontier countries. In the history of America frontier play a very important role in the advanced establishment and this great revolution changes a new meaning and directions especially to his frontiers. For example, now we are on the edge of many new frontiers due to the fast communication in the whole world such as food, space, science, medicine and political frontiers. Now frontier is the name of unknown opportunities with unknown paths in multiple directions therefore in such a way frontier is confronted with unknown threats and a number of challenges. When America discovered then Europeans found new frontier lands for the cultivation of new variety of crops and for animals that develops new industries and new number of opportunities for the workers. This single change leads to a great revolution in the whole world. Food frontier provides big market place to the producers because food is the necessity of the whole world, as the new varieties in foods are introduced thus it gets more food frontiers and then especially the food producers must follow some ethical limitations according to the different nation’s requirements, such as Wear & et al. ( 2000) describe in his book about the ethics of food frontier that any new introducing variety of food, drugs or devices should be proved from Food and Drug Administration as these are now safe and effective in use. To maintain and ensure food hygienic quality, safety and its purity are very crucial elements in the whole process of food production, therefore the whole process of food ingredients should be checked up step by step. The cooking process doesn’t matter if all the ingredients are not to be proved as these are perfect in their quality. For example, for the supply of chicken, animal nutrition, place of living, use of veterinary drugs should also be proven, this is very necessary for the safety and quality of chicken and in any kind of dish in which the chicken is used. These are some of main important safety plans to ensure the quality of food products. Every nation has its own policies and rules for every product so that knowledge about all such kind of information is very necessary in this field. As food frontiers are more demandable, similarly food quality is also demandable in all societies therefore standards should be followed.   Politics is strong instrument to get more frontiers because all the matters among the nations are just under the control of this, some time border disputes cause hindrance in any kink of cultural exchange that lead also to the shortage of the food frontiers so that politics greatly influenced in all matters of the nations. To run all the matters in smooth manner therefore politics should be very democratic in nature, food suppliers have full knowledge about their food frontiers and about the demand of the products and also have knowledge about various political matters because political matters can change the direction of their trade. All the big and small issues of the countries and nations are inter-linked with each other therefore this is necessary for all international marketers to have a bird eye view on the whole matters of life and growing trend in various fields. Thus international relations and their rules and policies have a big part to foster all the frontiers.          References absoluteastronomy.com. (2009). Columbian Exchange, . [Accessed 23 October 2009]. Boyer Paul et al., The Enduring Vision A History of the American People. Suzanne Jeans, USA, 2009. p. 29.     Crosby, Alfred W, The Columbian Exchange Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492 30th. Praeger Publishers, USA, 2003. Weuropeanhistory.suite101.com, Columbianexchange. . [Accessed 23 October 2009]. Wear Stephan et al., Ethical Issues in Health Care on the Frontiers of the Twenty-First Century. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Netherlands, 2000. Read More