I could not find even a hint of such assertion in this paper, but if you indeed read it somewhere, I (just like you) doubt its veracity. Weapons, no matter how simple, always come first: one needs to defend himself and his family against predators ( animal and human) as a prerequisite for planting turnips. And then he will need weapons to protect his turnips :-) Agriculture is a relatively late occupation of a settled society.
Nomads of Asia had splendid weapons without ever planting a single cabbage patch. Some Chinese martial arts weapons did indeed stem from agricultural implements ( “ fighting hoe”, “ fighting shovel” etc) but those are mostly used by Shaolin monks in the Friday night Kung Fu movie marathons:-)
African sword-like objects are so convoluted and so decorative, that their descent from their horrendously primitive and ( barely) functional agricultural tools and/or fully functional hunting implements seems to be impossible and presupposes some magical or artistic background.
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