A Most Brief History on Grain Trading
It is interesting to look at how grain shipping has changed over the years. It started out that farmers would try to grow a little bit of everything to sustain their family. Then they started growing lots of one grain to trade with other people to get what they needed. This was the beginning of the grain trade and started around 9,000 BC. Since then grain trading and storage has been a quintessential part of humanity. There is evidence of a grain trade and storage in every single civilization since. The Egyptians had their own version of Grain Silos, the Romans built extensive road networks to facilitate the trade of all goods, including grain.
In the beginning grain was traded by the sack and things were bartered. You wouldn’t get money for your grain but instead would receive goods such as bread, or fruit, or furniture. Things would be traded. Then along came currency and a way to assign things value that could be represented by a coin.
That led to people trading grain to get money which they would then use for other goods and services. Farms were able to grow as farmers would pay workers to work on their farm However, it was cheaper just to have plenty of children that could help you on the farm.
Now the grain industry has evolved to massive farming conglomerates and companies that specialize in buying and selling grain and shipping that grain to other areas of the world that need it more. Massive ships transport grain and other products across the world by the tonne.
Our first real look at the grain industry comes with Greek societies. For example, Athens was a massive importer of grain because the population was too large to be supported by the surrounding countryside. Instead the city focused on producing other goods that it could sell so as to be able to feed itself, a staple of growing civilizations. Any civilization that has begun to build cities will need to supply itself via other areas of the world that produce more grain than what they need. In Athens case most of this grain come from Sicily, Egypt, Cyprus, Cyrene, and the Black Sea region. The fertile farmland and a sparse (relative) population allowed these regions to produce more grain than what they needed. So Athens and other densely populated regions of the world bought their grain.
As the ruling civilization of the world changed hands one of the things that stayed relatively unchanged was the grain trade. It is said that there are three things that are universal in the history of the earth. Sex, war and alcohol. Included in that should be grain trade. The grain trade has existed since humans first settled and started building farms. Before we were technically considered Homo Sapiens. Think about that, the grain trade is older than our current species.
Until the 20th century, the global trade of foodstuffs was limited to non perishables such as grains or live animals. With the advent of refrigeration that has since changed to food trade applying to everything, including fruits and vegetables. We are now used to getting everything fresh on our tables no matter what the time of the year is. This is thanks to the grain trade.
The grain trade laid the framework for the trade of foodstuffs and has since allowed fresh fruit to be integrated into the trade layout. Reefers, or refrigerated containers, are used to maintain the foods freshness until it reaches its destination.
However, the grain trade has not suffered due to other foodstuffs entering the market. The companies that transported grain just started transporting the other goods as well.
In conclusion, the grain trade has been around for as long as human civilization has been around and will be around for as long as there are people living in cities. People will always have to eat, and someone has to make their food. So the food will have to be shipped from the production areas to the processing areas and onward to the consumption areas. No way around this.
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