Agriculture in the Lunar Heartlands

From: Peter Metcalfe, CAPE Canty <CHEN190_at_cantva.canterbury.ac.nz>
Date: Wed, 22 Feb 1995 16:42:54 +1300


Nick Brooke:

>Dara Happa is, unfortunately, a rice monoculture. I did try to change this,
>but Greg was fixated on the idea.

The Dara Happans have traditionally dominated several tribes who grow different crops which supplant the diet of Nobility. I think that after the ravages of Sheng Seleris and his gang, the old rice paddy fields of Dara Happa have been destroyed (similar to Baghdad after the Mongols conquered it). The agricultural areas of the Oslir are once again functional but the growing styles are more hybridised compared to what they were previously.

Rice is still the major crop of Dara Happa. The Peasants raise quails and other small birds for food, as well as fish from the River and ponds. I don't think they herd horses but use oxen for heavy duty labour so they keep a couple of cows. I think that to raise a herd of cows within the confines of the Dara Happan irrigation system is wasteful, so any ox are imported from outside.

As one gets further from Dara Happa, the farms become a wee bit more specialized. There are great ranches in which the nobility raises horses for the army and for racing (they are too noble to be allowed in the hands of mere peasantry). The Peasants switch to growing barley and maize and herding cows and pigs. In the southeast, Goats are herded whereas in Rinliddi the populace may be trying to reestablish the herds of large birds ie verks (similar to emu and ostrich farms) that had been nearly destroyed by Pro-Horse and Anti-Bird Hordes of Sheng Seleris.

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