Farming Collectives

 

The Bryderfert Ciderer's Grange

The Bryderfert Ciderer's Grange is a small collective of farmers located along the west coast of western Waeyron, principally between Hollowport and Abelvere. The collective began as a group of ciderers whose main ambition was to breed better apple trees and better apples for the express purpose of making better cider. At this they were successful, and the ciders of Weayron are said to be the finest in the world (some in Obersch would disagree, but few can be considered knoweldgeable about ciders from both regions). After their successes in cornering the cider production trade in Waeyron, the Grange expanded to provide support to collective farming initiatives across the Fhaialane Grassland and eventually to most of Waeyron.

The Grain Bank of Bulostioi

In the Year 1313, the Grain Bank of Bulostioi was chartered by the Halfling Barbagu Family to begin buying up farmland and employing workers from the cities to work the fields. The land was cheap, and many people were hungry enough to give up their city life and take up back-breaking field work in exchange for a chance to eat. As the Grain Bank expanded, it became apparent that the real benefit was not in employing starving city folk to work the fields and feed themselves, but rather in creating a centralized organization in control of a large food supply that Charter Cities could negotiate with.

Autonomous individual farmers had been reluctant to sell food as long as their own families were going hungry, but The Grain Bank was able to put a price on a bushel of wheat. That price was exorbitant at first, but by 1315, the Cities would pay almost anything to avoid food riots, or the need to start conquering and holding lands.

The Grain Bank began purchasing failing land around the world when it was literally dirt cheap. Their sparse yields were not enough, but because they owned it and the workers did not, they could impose rationing and provide a lifeline to the Cities. The money from the Cities meant that their farm workers were being paid very well. They might not be able to eat much, but they could build nice houses and have nice clothes. Meanwhile, the Grain Bank was funneling cash into developing more aqueducts and improved farming practices.

The Grain Bank’s massive reinvestment in the land didn’t end the drought; the drought faded on its own as part of a natural climatic cycle. Regardless, by 1318, the Grain Bank of Bulostioi had risen to become one of the largest Companies in the world. Almost every City had some kind of provisional arrangement with The Grain Bank, and the scale of their operation allowed them to price out many independent farmers - forcing them to sell their land and become employees of the Company. By the middle of the Enlightenment, the Grain Bank had land holdings on every continent, and owned and operated approximately 10% of all the arable farm land in the world.

The Marqashi Fruiters Guild

Odovician Retinue

The Odovician Retinue was founded toward the end of the Middle Imperial Era when the Golanicjan Kingdom began defaulting on debt payments to major Odovician cities, creating severe economic pressure across the Plains of Odovic serious enough to threaten food security in the region and across the continent at large. Landowners, and the workers guilds who supported them determined that if they did not band together and consolidate their political power, farming collapse would lead to total social collapse. In 1080, nobles from all the major cities below the Southwall Ridge conceded to meet with representatives of small landholders, peasants, farmers and guild representatives to discuss centralizing agricultural management across the region to ensure fair dealing, stable prices and food stability. The meetings resulted in the formation of the Odovician Retinue, a regional collective powerful enough to threaten withholding food and even military support to the foundering Kingdom. The requirement for the Golanicjan Kingdom to meet their debt obligations to Odovician cities or starve caused them to default on debts elsewhere, hastening the ultimate collapse of the Kingdom, and in many ways initiating the death spiral of collapsing nation states that defined the Late Imperial Era.

The Silk League

The Silk League is a collective formed to represent the interests of sectiles and hive farmers operating in the Black Desert region of southeastern Jumira. Sectile farming is a highly specialized trade with a complex and ethically problematic history. Prior to the Third Epoch, tribes in the coastal regions surrounding the Black Desert would periodically travel inland in search of newly established sectile hives. In an abhorrent practice known as hive raiding, they would attack these hives, capture the queen, and compel the workers and drones of the hive to perform hard labour while plundering the hive for priceless royal jelly and eggs that could be elevated into new queens. When the sectiles of the hive had been worked to the point of collapse, they would choose a few survivors to scatter back into the desert with enough eggs and royal jelly that they might be able to establish new hives, then they would unleash giant spiders in the hive to eradicate it. They would then capture the giant spiders emerging from the hives after the food was exhausted, and harvest silk and venom from them before killing them and venturing into the hive to recover chitin.

While there are no written records, oral histories suggest that these horrific practices were brought to an end sometime around 1500 BCB when larger sectile hives mounted an offensive against multiple nomadic tribes and many small settlements in the region. Thousands were killed, and multiple sectile hives were also eradicated, but the end result of the so-called Sectile Uprising was a regional recognition of the rights of sectiles, and a prolonged period of detente.

Over the course of the next five centuries, as sectile drones began to integrate to a limited extent into other humanoid societies and cultures, the practice of hive farming began to emerge. Hive farming is the practice of working in partnership with sectiles to both protect and promote the success and growth of their hives in exchange for access to trade in the byproducts of the hive. Hive farming practices are highly ritualized and humanoid workers who engage in these practices undergo long periods of training and enculturation - effectively becoming members of the hives they work with. Hive farming would continue to function this way for a thousand years - with hive farmers evolving into a kind of esoteric priesthood. Over these centuries, the ritualized practices of silk harvesting from giant spiders were also established and refined, with spiders being bred and hatched, their legs amputated, and then tended to, fed and harvested for silk and venom for years.

With the beginning of the Fourth Epoch and the expansion of imperial powers around the globe, economic pressures in Jumira led to the sudden re-emergence of hive raiding in the Black Desert. This time, however, these horrific practices also lead to the massacre of countless humanoid hive farmers who held prestigious, even sacred positions in both their sectile and humanoid communities. In 653, sectile and humanoid forces from across the Black Desert captured the trading outpost of Anthill and purged it of mercenary hive raiders. They then split their forces and laid seige to the cities of Gaturan and Ubanamok, both of which were forced to capitulate in less than 100 days. With control of Anthill and with Gaturan and Ubanamok seeking peace, the joint humanoid and sectile forces were able to force regional recognition of sectile rights and to outlaw the practice of hive raiding.

In 654, the Silk League was formed to see that the treaties that ended the conflict would be accepted across Jumira. By 655, every major city in Jumira and most important cities in their direct trade networks had ratified these treaties. The practice of hive raiding was made illegal in Jumira (though it is not illegal everywhere, and it even where it is, it might be overlooked). Additionally, killing a sectile is considered to be the same as killing any other humanoid (though again, this still happens in the context of hive raids that officials may be inclined to ignore). Finally, the forced or coerced enslavement of sectiles was outlawed (though to complicate things, sectile drones retained the right to sell themselves into temporary bonded or indentured servitude).

By the Enlightenment, the Silk League is a large and influential organization in Jumira, that works to protect the rights of sectiles and those who work with them to farm the resources of their hives. They also represent hive farmers and negotiate on their behalf with charter cities, great houses and other organizations ensure they get fair treatment. The Silk League also works to represent the rights of individual sectile drones who seek to negotiate entering into indentured servitude contracts with organizations such as the Black Sand Union. The Black Sand Union, however, has fought for centuries to prevent from the Silk League from successfully petitioning to make these contracts illegal unless the Silk League acts as a representative. The Silk League argues that the contracts being offered by the Black Sand Union are brutally exploitative and sectile drones are not informed enough to understand this. The Black Sand Union counters that giving the Silk League the authority to gate keep business relationships between free individuals and parties is unjust.