The Evolution of Agricultural Technology

The Evolution of Agricultural Technology — page 1 — People have always used technology to help them selves get food and eat it that is if we consider that technology includes everything from basic stone tools to advanced computer programs Today people have access to an amazing variety of foods from all over the world partly thanks to modern technology and partly because of ancient inventions However agricultural technology has still not solved problems like famine and malnutrition and many people have unequal access to nutritious foods These and ad ditional challenges such as global warming mean that sustainable agriculture will be vital to our future Agriculture has no single simple origin It devel oped gradually and independently in many regions of the world People everywhere were already adept at finding wild plants and animals they could eat As they turned from gathering wild foods as well as hunt ing and fishing to agriculture they developed new kinds of tools and ways of creating food In addition to stone tools they made tools out of antlers and bones posts and digging sticks out of wood fishing nets out of plant fibers storage containers out of gourds and baskets out of grass and leaves Over many thou sands of years people made more efficient tools and they became more organized at growing food 4 INTRODUCTION

The Evolution of Agricultural Technology — page 2 — People domesticated a wide variety of plants and animals at different times Parts of the Middle East have traces of grain farming from thousands of years ago Agriculture might have begun even earlier in Southeast Asia Both of those areas were rich in animals suitable for domestication and in varieties of plants and both had mild climates Additionally agriculture was developed in East Asia and in the Americas thousands of years ago People didn’t always domesticate the animals around them especially those in water Sometimes trapping animals or rais ing them in enclosures was easier than completely domesticating them People built fish weirs to trap fish in rivers and estuaries They modified beaches These African farms in Burundi grow coffee for export as well as crops to support many more peo ple than could be fed by hunting and gathering 5

The Evolution of Agricultural Technology — page 3 — The Evolution of Agricultural Technology to increase the size of the habitat for marine life like clams and crabs When people began to domesticate animals they chose species that were already somewhat calm around humans Then over time they selec tively bred them to favor different traits that made the animals more docile or easier to control Humans chose to raise and eat mostly herbivores plant eat ers They observed over countless generations that carnivores meat eaters were difficult to capture and control Surrounded by fields where plants and animals were raised family homes grew over time into vil lages or towns and eventually cities Ultimately farming and related technologies helped lead to the development of modern civilization 6

The Evolution of Agricultural Technology — page 4 — Chapter 1 STONE AGE ORIGINS OF AGRICULTURE From the earliest times agriculture has included raising both crops and animals Before agricul ture became well established hunter-gatherers and fishers had to seek out plants and animals useful to them Wild fruits nuts and berries were probably the first plant foods of ancient peoples Later humans learned to dig up roots and scrape or pound them to a paste for eating Then as people ate some plants more than others they threw the unusable remains onto the ground nearby As a result the seeds of these preferred species became more likely to sprout close to human settlements The pattern continued as some varieties of fruits vegetables and grains began to be used more often than others In a similar way some animals began to risk coming closer to human villages and humans 7

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