Agriculture
Tim Sussmann
Background
For the past 2 million years, up to about 10000 years ago, the human was doing something right, if they were not, we wouldn’t be here to talk about it. In recent times however, humanities “ingenuity” has dug the quality of life into a pit that will be difficult to get out of. This pit is agriculture and it is by far one of the greatest turning points in the history of humanity.[1]
The backbone to human life for this 2 million year period is how we acquired food. Hunting and gathering of food forced humans to stay active, eat a balanced diet, live in smaller, more functional, social groups, and stay in touch with the natural cycles of the environment.
The hunter gatherer lifestyle was based around basic needs first- food, water, shelter, passing on of genes, and raising offspring.[2] They would follow their food and communally raise their offspring. In total HG’s spent approximately 3-5 hours on acquiring food per day, the rest of the time was spent raising offspring, researching medicinal plants, making music, dancing, and practicing belief systems. This type of lifestyle created a life expectancy of upwards of 60 years of age and would be considered a high quality of life. [3]
Turning Point
So, what changed? Farming came into the picture about 10000 years ago, this change created a lifestyle that is still with us today. When seed was planted, it started making humans more sedentary, it made it so people would not follow food, instead they would stay with the growing food, it increased population size and it required a person in charge. With one single person in power, power is taken from the group and channeled to the individual, this creates conflict because evolutionarily speaking, humans want to have power.
This power struggle created the platform for “large-scale war, inequality, empire, hierarchy, poverty, crime, famine and human-induced climate change as well as mass extinction.”. [4]
Effect
We are now in a time where we are reliant on agriculture to provide food. The dark side to this is that agriculture degrades the land we once were able to find a plethora of various edible plants and animals. We are extremely overpopulated, out of shape, and out of tune with our true nature, which makes it difficult to find other means of going back to our evolutionary roots. [5] We are stuck, and the only way to fix this is to realize we are stuck and change our cultural behavior.
Bio dynamic farming is a style of farming that uses natural processes to fertilize, and grow healthy crops. It requires humans to synch back up with nature and connect with earth in a more natural way. In our personal opinion, bio dynamic farming may be the only escape.
[1] Give sweaty hunter-gatherer his due. (2010). FT.Com, Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/759538705?accountid=13215
[2]Braithwaite, J. (2005). Hunter-gatherer human nature and health system safety: An evolutionary cleft stick? International Journal for Quality in Health Care, 17(6), 541-5. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/202929644?accountid=13215
[3] Dennis, C. W. (2006, Humanity's worst invention agriculture. The Ecologist, 36, 36-39. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/234926503?accountid=13215
[4] Dennis, C. W. (2006, Humanity's worst invention agriculture. The Ecologist, 36, 36-39. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/234926503?accountid=13215
[5] Schneider, H. (2009). An edible history of humanity. The Humanist, 69(5), 46-47. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/235296245?accountid=13215
Tim Sussmann
Background
For the past 2 million years, up to about 10000 years ago, the human was doing something right, if they were not, we wouldn’t be here to talk about it. In recent times however, humanities “ingenuity” has dug the quality of life into a pit that will be difficult to get out of. This pit is agriculture and it is by far one of the greatest turning points in the history of humanity.[1]
The backbone to human life for this 2 million year period is how we acquired food. Hunting and gathering of food forced humans to stay active, eat a balanced diet, live in smaller, more functional, social groups, and stay in touch with the natural cycles of the environment.
The hunter gatherer lifestyle was based around basic needs first- food, water, shelter, passing on of genes, and raising offspring.[2] They would follow their food and communally raise their offspring. In total HG’s spent approximately 3-5 hours on acquiring food per day, the rest of the time was spent raising offspring, researching medicinal plants, making music, dancing, and practicing belief systems. This type of lifestyle created a life expectancy of upwards of 60 years of age and would be considered a high quality of life. [3]
Turning Point
So, what changed? Farming came into the picture about 10000 years ago, this change created a lifestyle that is still with us today. When seed was planted, it started making humans more sedentary, it made it so people would not follow food, instead they would stay with the growing food, it increased population size and it required a person in charge. With one single person in power, power is taken from the group and channeled to the individual, this creates conflict because evolutionarily speaking, humans want to have power.
This power struggle created the platform for “large-scale war, inequality, empire, hierarchy, poverty, crime, famine and human-induced climate change as well as mass extinction.”. [4]
Effect
We are now in a time where we are reliant on agriculture to provide food. The dark side to this is that agriculture degrades the land we once were able to find a plethora of various edible plants and animals. We are extremely overpopulated, out of shape, and out of tune with our true nature, which makes it difficult to find other means of going back to our evolutionary roots. [5] We are stuck, and the only way to fix this is to realize we are stuck and change our cultural behavior.
Bio dynamic farming is a style of farming that uses natural processes to fertilize, and grow healthy crops. It requires humans to synch back up with nature and connect with earth in a more natural way. In our personal opinion, bio dynamic farming may be the only escape.
[1] Give sweaty hunter-gatherer his due. (2010). FT.Com, Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/759538705?accountid=13215
[2]Braithwaite, J. (2005). Hunter-gatherer human nature and health system safety: An evolutionary cleft stick? International Journal for Quality in Health Care, 17(6), 541-5. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/202929644?accountid=13215
[3] Dennis, C. W. (2006, Humanity's worst invention agriculture. The Ecologist, 36, 36-39. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/234926503?accountid=13215
[4] Dennis, C. W. (2006, Humanity's worst invention agriculture. The Ecologist, 36, 36-39. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/234926503?accountid=13215
[5] Schneider, H. (2009). An edible history of humanity. The Humanist, 69(5), 46-47. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/235296245?accountid=13215