Hoe-farming
Hoe-farming is a term introduced by Eduard Hahn in 1910
to collectively refer to primitive forms of agriculture, defined by the absence of the plough. Tillage in hoe-farming cultures is done by simple manual tools such as
digging sticks or hoes.
Hoe-farming is the earliest form of agriculture practiced in the Neolithic Revolution.
Early forms of the plough were introduced throughout the Near East and Europe by the 5th to 4th millennium BC.
The invention spread throughout Greater Persia and parts of Central Asia, reaching East Asia in the 2nd millennium BC.
The parts of the world where agriculture was introduced but not the plough were named the hoe-cultivation belt by Hahn, followed by Werth.
The Hoe-cultivation belt is mostly located in tropical latitudes, including Sub-Saharan Africa, Maritime Southeast Asia, and the pre-Columbian Americas.
Hoe-farming often coincides with long fallow systems and shifting cultivation. Split hoes are hoes that have two or more tines at right angles to the shaft. Their use is typically to loosen the soil, prior to planting or sowing. It provides the ability to cultivate effectively at small row distances. Split hoeing is contrasted to permanent plough-based cultivation systems and the intensification of agriculture. Hoe-farming may contain slash and burn clearance techniques, but they are not strictly necessary. It is usually embedded in the logic of subsistence agriculture.
