More is always better, right?
About 10,000 years ago, humans took a step that changed our
dietary future forever: We made the
transition from hunter-gather subsistence toward horticulture and then
agriculture.
It is interesting to imagine the process involved in taking
that step. What led our ancestors to
begin the process of intentionally planting seeds in the ground for the purpose
of harvesting, instead of just collecting as they grew naturally? What inspired them to take wild animals,
collect them in some fashion to control their wanderings to use them for
sustenance? Was the first animal used
for meat or for milk or even for their pelts, or perhaps for protection?
It is useful to consider possible scenarios that might have led to the
rise of pastoralism, horticultural and agriculture as it tells us a lot of the
mentality and adaptive forces of those ancestors. Consider this question: What were our ancestors thinking when they
chose to change how they obtained the food resources their families needed to
survive?
Regardless of how it happened, that single step opened up
doorways to humans that otherwise probably never would have been available to
them. Consider the benefits of adopting
agriculture to our human ancestors:
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| Fields of grain |
Surplus: Agriculture
(and horticulture/pastoralism) produces more food than a hunter-gatherer
approach. This allows for storage of
food to guard against times when food is scarce.
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| Blacksmith |
Specialization: With a
larger quantity of food produced by a smaller group of people, this opens up
the opportunity for others to do something besides food production, activities
such as tool production, making pottery, creating clothing, processing
harvested grain, baking, butchering… the list goes on and on.
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| Trade Market |
Trade: With some people
producing excess food and other producing goods, agriculture opens up the
possibility of trade, which eventually resulted in a monetary economic system.
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| Banaue Village |
Sedentary residence patterns:
When your food doesn’t move, then you don’t have to either. People can settle in one location and build
more permanent structures. Combined with
specialization and trade, this led to the establishment of villages, then
towns, and finally city centers.
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| Greek Acropolis |
The Benefits of City-States:
Centralized governments, education, organized religion, art,
science, trade with other city-states, the flow of new techniques, new tools
and new ideas.
All of this is tied directly with the advent of
food-production techniques. The reason
you are taking this course, using a computer, listening to music, watching a
movie, voting, driving a car, and thinking about a new phone upgrade is because
of agriculture. No kidding.
So agricultural is wonderful. It must be the best option for humanity when it comes to subsistence patterns. It must provide the most reliable and healthiest option for our dietary needs, right?
Right?
There is an article available for you to read in
the Canvas Course Resources module (The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race by Jared Diamond) which challenges this very question. I encourage you to take the time to read it
as it takes the common assumption that agriculture is “best” compared with
other subsistence patterns and asks the question, “Best for what?”
Comparative studies have been conducted comparing the health
of traditional hunter-gatherer populations with that of agricultural
populations. They have compared such
measures as nutritional deficiencies, dental disease, and incidences of
famine. In every category, agriculture
was on the losing side of the study.
Agricultural populations are more likely to have vitamin and nutritional
deficiencies. Why? Because their diet is much less diverse than
that of hunter-gatherer populations, providing fewer food options and therefore
increasing the likelihood that the diet will be missing needed nutritional
building blocks. Agricultural
populations tend to have greater incidences of dental disease, following not
just a higher concentration of high sugar fruits and other food stuffs, but
more processed grains and starches that can also make dental health harder to
maintain. Perhaps the greatest surprise
was the higher incidence of famine. Isn’t that
what agricultural surplus supposed to prevent?
But agricultural populations can become highly dependent upon a limited
number of crops. If those fail, their
fallback options are few and they have lost many of their traditional gathering
skills and sources that would allow them to temporarily adapt until the crops
recover. Hunter-gatherer are susceptible
to dry periods, but they are much more adaptable and highly mobile, allowing
them to adjust their diet to whatever is available and also traveling to wherever
the food happens to be.
This raises an interesting question: Do our cultural (and physical) adaptations exist
because they benefit a population in general, regardless of how long ago the adaptations arose?
Or do these adaptations exist because they benefit a population right at
the very moment the practices arose? Another way of asking
this problem is this: Do the adaptive
processes that produce our traits and behaviors, both biological and cultural
evolution, produce traits that think long term into the future, resulting in
traits that will provide long-term benefits, or do they only produce immediate
benefits?
If any of you are familiar with Richard Dawkin’s book, The Blind Watchmaker, you might be
familiar with the idea of evolution (again, both physical and cultural) as a blind,
tinkering watchmaker. The watchmaker
(representing evolutionary processes) can’t look into the future to figure out
what would be best for an organism millions of years from now, but he does work
with the materials he has to produce traits that work right now in the
immediate present. These adaptive
processes can’t plan ahead. They can’t
plan at all. They aren’t alive. They aren’t conscious. They don’t make intentional “decisions”. The adaptations these processes produce exist
not because there has been an intentional calculation made to make sure they
are the “best”. They are simply those
that leave behind the most individuals that possess or practice and pass on
those traits.
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| No comment |
The result is a behavioral practice just like
agriculture. By practicing agriculture,
you can produce and support a larger population who will survive and continue
to practice agriculture. That doesn’t
rule out complications or downsides sometime in the future. That doesn’t mean those populations will all
be healthier, have fewer cavities and never starve. All that matters is how many people practices
and pass on this pattern of subsistence.
It’s literally the domination of overwhelming quantity over ideal quality.
This is probably a very new idea for many of you, the concept that the traits we practice now don’t have to be the best for us, they just happen to be very good at being practiced by a larger number of people some time in our human evolutionary history. Think about how few people cut back on fats and sugars. That would make us healthier and be a better behavior for us to practice, right? So why do most of us crave fats and sugars and all of those things that are so bad for us? Because in our evolutionary history, those who ate well when food was readily available would be more likely to survive when there wasn’t enough, as there was sure to be. It’s feast or famine. Did our dietary preferences evolve to plan for the days when food would always be readily available for anyone who could walk into your corner McDonald’s and order 2000 calories of food for a few dollars? No, it did not occur with any foresight to the future at all. Unfortunately, we are stuck in modern times with modern food supplies coupled with our prehistoric appetites.
So here is the question for you to consider: I’ve highlighted a very few specific downsides to agriculture, but there are many more to consider.
- What are some modern problems that have arisen that can be traced to our adoption of agriculture 10,000 years ago? Post a comment for this discussion that outlines a downside of agriculture, identifying how this downside was originally produced as the result of some type of benefit to human populations and how it has become not so beneficial now. These downsides could relate to our biology, our diet, our social patterns, our economic patterns, and our natural environment. I am sure there are more categories than this, so don’t limit yourself. You just need to try to understand why the adaptation existed in the first place and what happened to produce the downside. This first comment is worth 5 bonus points.
- If you want to earn an additional 5 points, post a response to another student’s comment. This can be supportive or you can challenge their line of thinking with an alternative view.
A downside of agriculture is definitely the lack of variation in our available diet. Originally, people grew the crops that were easiest to grow and maintain at large quantities, this was extremely good for feeding large populations and ensuring that everyone had access to food. However, now in modern times, many people's diet is restricted to certain foods due to their price and availability. This causes them to have no variation in their diet resulting in them missing necessary vitamins and nutrients. Due to agriculture focusing on what feeds the most people, not what feeds people the best, our diets have greatly reduced in quality over time.
ReplyDeleteHello Cole, I would have to disagree to a certain exent. We as a society have more options to make better choices. Unfortunately, healthier options are not always chosen. Meaning we have the access to have a diverse healthy diet. However, the food campaigns make the unhealthy options look so desirable. For instance, the Carl's Jr. food campaign is very influential for their marketing.
DeleteHello Cole! I agree with you, and I think you explained this really well. Agriculture helped a lot at first because growing easy, large-scale crops made sure more people could eat and survive. But now that same system causes problems because many people can only afford or access a small variety of foods. Like you said, this leads to missing important vitamins and nutrients. I also like how you pointed out that agriculture focuses more on feeding the most people, not feeding people the healthiest way. That really connects to how something that was helpful in the past isn’t always the best for us today.
DeleteThe first downside that comes to mind is over consumption in the United States. It is not necessary to eat 3 times a day. Over indulgence of food has led to many food related illnesses. Diabetes, obesity, dental decay, infectious diseases from livestock etc.Initially agriculture was there to sustain life and to prevent famine. Agriculture has always been a form of wealth. The more diversity there is in one's diet the healthier. Higher protein is a better option versus a diet filled with carbohydrate dense foods. As time moves on I believe we as a society are going back to the original way of agriculture. I do believe this will be better for our future.
ReplyDeleteHi Shellia Reed I agree with what you're saying, agriculture definitely allows and influences people to over consume. In other subsistence patterns it would be much less common for people to overconsume solely based on the lesser availability of food. With the large availability of food due to agriculture it takes all effort out of consumption, now adays people can order all of their groceries from their phone and have it delivered to their door. Many technological advancements have had adverse affects on public health in the pursuit of ease of availability.
DeleteHi Sheila,
DeleteI thought that this was a unique perspective that I didn't think of. You're right, with the high accessibility of food (focusing on the United States), overconsumption has become a modern issue. You can easily find a Mcdonalds in your neighborhood. But let's say you don't want to go and get it yourself, you can simply order DoorDash or Uber Eats, and your food arrive right at your doorstep. At the same time, these are the same types of calorie-dense foods that are ruining our health. It tastes so good, yet it is so bad for us. People complain that healthy food is more expensive and stick to the cheaper, unhealthy foods. This mindset has shaped our society into overconsumption. Your post was very interesting, and I enjoyed discussing this topic. However, I was a little curious about the last two sentences of your post. What did you mean by that? Overall, well done!
Hi Sheila! I agree with you that overconsumption is a prevalent issue that has developed as a result of agriculture. I liked your point about all the food-related illnesses that are present in today's society, because many of them can be attributed to over reliance on agriculture. It's incredibly easy today for a person to eat the same meals over and over again, just because those meals are very accessible. The lack of variety in the modern person's diet may make them more susceptible to famine or illness.
DeleteI believe that the two main modern issues would be social inequality and the variation of food (obviously, there are more factors, but I think that these two factors are especially significant). In terms of hunter-gatherer societies, they were more egalitarian. This means that there was a higher form of equality: no form of leadership, no social hierarchies based on gender, no such thing as storing food, therefore no accumulation of wealth, etc. In general, most people had similar amounts of resources. However, with the introduction of agriculture, it produces high food surpluses, where the rest of the food can be stored (especially helpful at times when food is scarce). Now there are people with responsibilities of controlling this surplus (e.g., who stores it, who distributes it, etc.). This creates power and develops social classes. At the same time, some people have the advantage of owning the land and passing that wealth down across generations. In general, there is now a distinction between the wealthy (advantageous) and the poor (fewer opportunities). Connecting this to our modern society, similar practices happen, such as property and real estate, money and capital, corporations, inherited wealth, etc. The second reason is the variation of food. In hunter-gatherer societies, diets were diverse and varied between seasons, ranging from all kinds of plants and animals. However, with the introduction of agriculture, there were a few staple crops that were heavily focused on (e.g., maize and rice) due to their high yields. People depended on this narrow range of foods. This resulted in nutrient deficiencies, and when these monocultures were affected, this led to famines (hence highly vulnerable). We can see this in modern times with the focus on "empty calories" and highly processed diets that lead to various diseases. We are so used to this because it is something we may crave but has no benefit to us, and can actually harm us in the long term. At the same time, coming back to social inequality, those higher on the social hierarchy have access to higher-quality foods than those below them. So even though agriculture has allowed for producing more food and growing larger societies, it also created many issues like social inequalities and poorer health that shape modern problems today.
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ReplyDeleteA modern issue that owes it's existence, in part, to agriculture, could be starvation. Agriculture allowed us to focus on other things besides survival, right? And this led to the development of more centralized cities, governments, politics, economies, infrastructures, and all the components of modern society that we endure today. Then comes the implementation of money. To acquire services or fulfill your needs, such as eating, you need to pay. You pay for shelter, for a roof over your head. You pay to buy groceries, or to eat at a restaurant. This is due to agriculture. There are definitely people who are more than able to exchange money for food, but if not for agriculture, they wouldn't have to pay at all. There are many people in many different parts of the world that don't have enough to eat, but if humans had stayed as hunter-gatherers, the idea of paying for food wouldn't even exist. Getting food to feed yourself or your family would be entirely your own responsibility, whether acquiring it naturally by hunting an animal or finding some sort of edible plant. Today, humanity has become irreversibly reliant on agriculture, so much so that if access to food is limited, many will starve, because our skill at finding food for ourselves naturally is all but depleted.
ReplyDeleteOne major downside of agriculture today is how it affects our diet and health. When agriculture first started, it was a huge benefit because it allowed people to grow more food, store it, and support bigger populations. This helped humans survive and settle in one place. However, over time, people began relying on only a few main crops like wheat, corn, and rice. This made diets less diverse compared to hunter-gatherers who ate many different plants and animals. Today, this has turned into a bigger problem because agriculture led to highly processed foods that are high in sugar and carbs, which causes issues like obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. What was once helpful for survival is now not as beneficial because our bodies are still adapted to older diets, but our food environment has completely changed.
ReplyDelete(Accidentally did it twice, the first one was put as anonymous by mistake:)). One major downside of agriculture today is how it affects our diet and health. When agriculture first started, it was a huge benefit because it allowed people to grow more food, store it, and support bigger populations. This helped humans survive and settle in one place. However, over time, people began relying on only a few main crops like wheat, corn, and rice. This made diets less diverse compared to hunter-gatherers who ate many different plants and animals. Today, this has turned into a bigger problem because agriculture led to highly processed foods that are high in sugar and carbs, which causes issues like obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. What was once helpful for survival is now not as beneficial because our bodies are still adapted to older diets, but our food environment has completely changed.
ReplyDelete