What if the Pacific Islanders introduce the New World Crops(since in OTL they got the Sweet Potatoes from the Americas) at least Potatoes, Cassava and Sweet Potatoes to East Asia which would mean it would be the South East Asians and the Japanese get these first, if the South East Asians and the Japanese get a population boost due to the new crops how would that effect the history of East Asia in general?
WI: Pacific Islanders introduce New World Crops to Old World
- Thread starter kasumigenx
- Start date
To have an impact on China any new crop with have to outperform rice and its three harvests a year. A major reason why Euorpean adopted potatoes was that you can grow it in "wheat country" and it is less labour intensive and does not require mills for processing. Any new crop has to deliver a similar advantage or be a luxury item for it to sweep old ones aside.
There are many parts of China where rice is not cultivated. The high mountain areas of China could do much better if potatoes are introduced.
twovultures
Donor
Sweet potatoes aren't massive game changers, but they're relatively easy to cultivate and tasty and so they could become pretty common in the cuisine of southeast Asia.
If maize is introduced, that is a big game changer. There would be a major population boom in the tropical areas. Same with Cassava, which would enhance food security among tropical peoples since it's a very hardy, drought-tolerant plant.
The Polynesians are not likely to introduce potatoes. Even if they got them, they wouldn't be able to grow them on their islands-completely wrong climate.
If maize is introduced, that is a big game changer. There would be a major population boom in the tropical areas. Same with Cassava, which would enhance food security among tropical peoples since it's a very hardy, drought-tolerant plant.
The Polynesians are not likely to introduce potatoes. Even if they got them, they wouldn't be able to grow them on their islands-completely wrong climate.
Last edited:
Chickens were actually introduced to the Americas by the Polynesians, I just wonder if the Polynesians were able to acquire Maize then what happens is that the Polynesians might have a population boom first before the crop reaches the old world, I just wonder what would happen to the Polynesians.
twovultures
Donor
In some cases...very bad stuff. Remember, the Polynesian polities are on islands, and not always big ones, so we may see overpopulaton, warfare, and environmental collapse followed by population collapse after maize is adopted.
Some islands may avoid that, with the higher populations leading to the creation of centralized states that are able to maintain order and preserve the environment-for example, the Chief declares that the largest grove of trees on the island is his sacred grove, and so keeps them from being chopped down.
I actually don't think maize would be a permanent major crop in the Pacific due to the fact that it's not very drought resistant. You may get a scenario where maize becomes the crop of choice, the population booms, a mega El Nino effect occurs, the population drops and switches to manioc and then recovers but keeps with the more drought resistant crop.
Only if they can also bring across nixtamalization along with the maize. Maize took quite a while to take off, in europe for the same reason.
I some times wonder what Africa would look like if they could gain access to Maize and nixtamalization though.
twovultures
Donor
Woops, yeah, I forgot about that. The Pacific Islanders would either have to get nimtamalization or get pellagra. Though mind you, they were already at risk in some areas for protein deficiencies due to overreliance on crops like taro.
Flocculencio
Donor
The Chinese and Indians did adopt potatoes (and corn too in the case of the Chinese). The very fact that they don't compete with rice and can be grown in terrain a bit rough for wheat made them attractive and led to 16th C population booms.
You seem to think that the main staple in Asia is rice- in both North India and North China it's actually wheat because neither of these regions is particularly great for rice cultivation. New World crops would (and did) work very well here.
twovultures
Donor
So the question about the effect really goes to when and where the crops are introduced. If the region that is now southern China experiences a population boom from maize in the 14th rather than the 16th century, what is the effect? Would a Hmong hoard develop capable of fighting off the Chinese? Would Angkor Wat switch to primarily maize agriculture and so avoid their collapse?
Asia is not my strong suite, but those are both interesting outcomes.
I was thinking more along how maize would affect the pacific islanders, as the first leg of the journey. Pacific islanders is definitely not my strong suite so I wonder if maize even grows very well in those islands. My second thought was that maize needs alot of nitrogen in the soil, so I wonder if their soils can hold up to it. I know that there are many islands where guano is very prevalent, could the Islanders develop guano based agriculture?
If anyone experiences population booms first in asia it will be the people of Malay Archipelago because it will be the area where the crops will be introduced first.
Flocculencio
Donor
Not really. IOTL, as I said, the areas which really got the full benefits of the Columbian Exchange boom were the more temperate places like North India and North China. South India, South China and SE Asia also benefited, but not as greatly, given that these regions were specifically very well suited for intensive and highly productive rice cultivation and less so for potatoes and maize.
You'll see a minor boom but nothing like what will happen once the New World crops reach temperate climes.
If tobacco comes over you'll see a cash crop boom too- IOTL the tobacco boom in Southern China after the Columbian Exchange was so huge that the resulting soil depletion led to a series of famines.
Flocculencio
Donor
Actually that's an excellent point. If Polynesians have potatoes and maize they'l be able to engage in effective temperate agriculture in New Zealand rather than the somewhat marginal, not-very-well adapted suite of tropical crops they had IOTL.
twovultures
Donor
Once again, the Polynesians are not very likely to bring potatoes across. And the maize they would bring across would probably be gained from the tropical areas of the Americas, and so unsuited for growth in cold areas like New Zealand. I don't know how fast the Maori could create a new cold-tolerant cultivar, and it's possible that they wouldn't consider it worth the effort and would just go to growing sweet potatoes like in OTL.
This also means that the hilly areas of the Malay Archipelago would be settled as well and more population density for the Malay Archipelago..
Yeah, they are likely to be assimilated and that might be a bad news to Burma as well.