There are probably a few things that come to your mind when you think of farmers. To name a few: overalls, straw hat, tanned arms; hay bales, tractors, seeds. All very farmer-friendly. What about fur, whiskers and big front teeth? Probably not.
But in a paper published Monday, researchers argue that maybe, just maybe, the southeastern US pocket gopher, a species of burrowing rodent known in many communities as a pest, could be considered a rudimentary type of farmer. By digging long underground tunnels that promote plant growth and allow roots to be easily eaten, pocket gophers would be, as the study put it, “the first non-human agricultural mammal.”
“Because they provide and cultivate this ideal environment for growth, we think that makes them farmers,” said Veronica Selden, who graduated in May from the University of Florida and led the research.
Francis E. Putz, a biologist at the University of Florida and a co-author of the paper, said, “Agriculture is just one more element of the pocket gopher’s natural history.”
Species across the animal kingdom engage in agricultural behavior. Some of the more advanced are ant and fungus-gathering beetles that weed, water, protect, and plant. But it can be difficult to answer the often asked question: are they farmers?
“I would simply define agriculture as any individual who has control over their land and is able to decide what they want to grow,” said Nezahualcoyotl Xiuhtecutli, general coordinator of the Florida Farmers Association, which advocates for the state’s farm worker communities.
“We make a distinction between farmers and agricultural workers,” he added. “Farmers can make decisions for themselves.”
Free will probably cannot be attributed to gophers. So, they are not farmers in that sense.
“As far as qualifications go, being a farmer is a bit of a nebulous term,” said Kate Downes, director of outreach for New York FarmNet, an organization that advises farmers in the state. “We don’t have a hard and fast rule: if you identify as a farmer, we’ll work with you.”
Gophers do not identify as farmers, so they are not farmers in that sense either.
When I inquired about it, the Florida agricultural bureau referred me to their manual on statutory exemptions and transportation laws for agriculture. “‘Agriculture’ means the science and art of producing plants and animals useful to man”, reads the first page of the document.
Are gophers human? No? They are not farmers.
So how are gophers farmers? Putz and Selden offer a two-part argument.
First, pocket gophers, which are solitary and spend most of their time underground, promote plant and root growth with their tunnels. When digging, rodents circulate air under the plants, increasing oxygen in the soil. This activity helps the roots absorb more nutrients. The researchers also found that gophers disperse their waste through tunnels, which can help fertilize the soil.
Second, all the time gophers spend underground is exhausting. Digging a meter deep consumes thousands of times more energy than walking the same distance. Putz and Selden wondered where all this energy comes from.
By isolating several active tunnel systems, they found that the same digging activities that promote plant growth allow roots to grow directly into the air inside the damp tunnels. Gophers regularly eat these roots, which could provide more than 20% of the animals’ daily caloric needs and make up for some of the energy lost in the digging process.
The researchers also suggest that some particularly dense root systems may provide the rest of the animals’ sustenance.
“I think one of the reasons they have these extremely long tunnels is that there are some places in these systems that produce a lot of food,” Putz said.
JT Pynne, a Georgia Wildlife Federation biologist who specializes in the study of gophers, said of tunneling: “I think if we loosen the definition we can call it agriculture, but you’ll have to apply that across the spectrum. of herbivores”.
Pynne notes that the animal “improves the soil” with its tunnels and “builds the surroundings to make its habitat better for itself”, but, after all, its behavior isn’t intentional enough to be a farmer.
“Based on all my experience, I don’t see them advanced enough,” said Pynne, who found that gophers glow under ultraviolet light.
The authors of the article argue that “farmer” is a somewhat artificial concept. None of them seemed to want to discuss this issue.
“We think the way they grow roots in the tunnels is enough to consider them farmers,” said Selden.
Most important for them was learning another curious fact about how these animals fit into their ecosystem.
“If you type ‘pocket gophers’ online, most entries are about killing them,” Putz said. “I think the first step in taking care of nature is knowing something about it.”
Translated by Luiz Roberto M. Gonçalves.
