Traditional agriculture, non-industrial plant cultivation for human use, is practiced worldwide by millions of smallholder farmers in arid lands.
Advancing an understanding of traditional agriculture can improve its practice and contribute to understanding the past. Traditional agriculture has been practiced in the North American Southwest and northwest Mexico for at least four thousand years and intensely studied for at least one hundred years.
What is not known or well-understood about traditional arid lands agriculture in this region has broad application for research, policy, and agricultural practices in arid lands worldwide.
Ingram, Scott E. and Robert C. Hunt, editors 2015 Traditional Arid Land Agriculture: Understanding the Past for the Future. University of Arizona Press.