For half a thousand years after its invention, in Mesopotamia, writing was used exclusively for bookkeeping: "the massive effort through a system of notation to make a society, its manpower, and its production legible to its rulers and temple officials, and to extract grain and labor from it".
Growing local grain is labor-intensive and usually organic, meaning cheap pesticides are not an option, and it is done on a small scale, meaning it lacks the economies of agribusiness.
By 780, the old grain tax and labor service of the 7th century was replaced by a semiannual tax paid in cash, signifying the shift to a money economy boosted by the merchant class.
The main problem areas were ineffective village assemblies (Gram Sabhas), the engagement of "contractors," the selection of beneficiaries by contractors, inappropriate wage setting, payments in cash instead of grain, the use of labor-displacing machinery, and disregard of the labor:material ratio in works executed.
Still, farmers are giving up, Mr. Moquin said, due to the rising cost of land, capital improvements, labor, insurance, grain to feed the cows, taxes, and services.
Then there are the sacks of grain, representing months of labor by the villagers, that are raised into the air, like effigies on a floating temple, before disappearing.
The importance of mathematics to an educated Egyptian is suggested by a New Kingdom fictional letter in which the writer proposes a scholarly competition between himself and another scribe regarding everyday calculation tasks such as accounting of land, labor, and grain.
Return of grain on investment of labor and time would have been low using vegetative propagation of small herbs.
Mr. Bielecki — known as Jurek — was in forced labor in a grain warehouse at the concentration camp when several young women were herded through the door in the fall of 1943.
In Mali, for example, girls and women do the bulk of the work — not just domestic labor, but the grain-selling that supports the family.
Although the stages of the milling process grinding, cooling, sifting and packing were beginning to be mechanized to various degrees, gravity or manual labor was required to move grain from one stage to the next.
