Consequences of agriculture

For by far the biggest part of humanity’s long history, we live by hunting, fishing, and gathering edible plants. We wander in small groups to where the food is. Not many children are born. It is difficult to carry small children while hunting and fishing. There are only a few million people living on earth.

About 10,000 years ago, people become farmers. But the shift from wandering constantly around and looking for food to being resident and farming takes several millennia. This change in lifestyle is of great importance to humanity and to the environment in which we live. It’s an agricultural revolution! When humans become resident farmers, they are able to save some of the autumn’s harvest to eat later, in the winter.

Life feels more secure. More children are born, and it’s easier to take care of them now, when resident. And the kids are needed; they help with the farming. So even more food can be produced. And more children need even more food.

Those who farm have to work longer and harder than the hunter-gatherers ever did. However, a cultivated area gives 100 times more food than a hunter-gatherer can get from an equal-sized area. But farmers only grow one or a small variety of plants, and depend on what they grow. When there is a bad year without rain, or with too much rain, the entire harvest can be destroyed. So suddenly the farmers end up with no food.

Hunter-gatherers on the other hand, eat what they can find. Their menu is varied. If there are no eggs, they eat seafood, and if they can’t find any plums, they pick berries. In difficult years the farmers risk being attacked by hungry and hostile neighbours wanting to steal food and land. If they are attacked and forced off their land, they risk starving to death.

Hunters can move to new areas and hunt and gather there instead. Becoming a resident farmer also affects our health. For several million years, the human body has evolved from the apes. It is adapted to a varied diet, for walking long distances, and for running after prey. With agriculture, we have to adapt to new chores: clearing stones from the fields, carrying water, digging the ground, and cutting down trees - repetitive, day after day.

Agriculture brings new damage to the body: wear and tear on the back, knees, and neck. Hunter-gatherers live outdoors in the open air, but farmers live in houses, often with their animals. So bacteria spread more easily between family members, and from the animals. Diseases spread more quickly than they did before. And the residents eat an unvaried diet, that is hard for the digestive system to break down.

Carbohydrate foods like wheat and other cereals can also make holes in the teeth: caries. When people become more and more resident, they alter nature. When many people slash and burn forests, divert watercourses, and grow fields, ecosystems are affected in a way that’s difficult to restore. Some plant and animal species will be extinct forever. Hmmm.

It seems that humans lived a better life before we became resident? But agriculture also gave us more food, so that more children could survive. And that was good. The security and the greater amount of food meant that we became even more numerous. And when there were more of us, some could experiment with other things than farming.

Maybe figure out that it’s possible to make pots out of clay, or how to weave. Humans had time to invent the wheel, or dig irrigation channels. No longer did everyone do the same thing - humans could specialise. The agricultural revolution led to big changes that affected our bodies, our lifestyle, and our environment, for good and bad.