Growing Food Starves People
Growing Food Starves People
S. Liz “Karma” Owen
University of Pheonix
How many people would buy a cell phone if they knew it was going to give them cancer after years of use? Probably many, because there is still a high demand for cigarettes today, even though we now realize how toxic smoking can be. How many people would buy wool blankets if they knew that in a couple generations, the world as we know it would cease to exist? The answer, again, is, sadly, probably many, seeing as that people are all still out there driving cars, littering, tearing down forests to build factories, and wasting all of the planet’s natural resources, such as food and water and wood and even petroleum. People continue doing all these things, because they don’t think that it’s possible to or they’re not willing to “go back.” But, if people had known when these destructive things were invented, would that have put them on the market in the first place? I’d like to think not.
Many technological discoveries and inventions have revolutionized the way citizens view the world and their lives, along with the way they live them. Some immediately took the world by storm, such as the personal computer (PC). Others, however, took more time before their effects on people’s lives was noticeable. When the automobile, for example, was invented by German inventor Karl Benz, in 1885 (Engelburt, 2006, para. 1), it was noticed by more by his peers in the scientific/inventive community than the public as a whole. It wasn’t until American Henry Ford invented the assembly line in 1913 (Saari, para. 1) that cars became popular. It wasn’t until the late 20th Century that people started realizing that maybe the cars they’re driving aren’t so good for the world as a whole.
It took a very, very long time for people to recognize the harm in one of the technological advances that is going to end up killing the world. In fact, most people still don’t realize it. But none of the most harmful inventions like cars and factories would even have been conceived without it. The world as we know it was born because of it, and the world as we know it will die because of it. The demon to which I’m referring is the practice of agriculture.
Agriculture, in it’s over-simplified definition is, “the science, art, or practice of cultivating the soil, producing crops, and raising livestock and in varying degrees the preparation and marketing of the resulting products” (“Agriculture,” Merriam-Webster, 2002). Many early societies showed signs of horticulture or subsistence farming throughout history. “For example, hunter-gatherers in the Near East first cultivated rye fields as early as 13,000 years ago” (Pringle, 1998, p. 1446). The ancient Egyptians used the Nile river for irrigation of crops such as wheat, barley, and flax (“Agriculture, History of,” 2008, para. 6). The Incas not only grew food (such as corn, potatoes, and squash,) but they even developed ways to store and preserve it (“Agriculture,” para. 9). However, none of these societies created a surplus of food that would cause their population to increase. That is what anthropologists mean when they refer to “subsistence farming” as opposed to “agriculture” (“Subsistence Farming,” Merriam-Webster, 2002).
According to science writer Heather Pringle (1998), the first signs of agriculture occurred in the Middle East (the “Fertile Crescent,” if you will), about 10,000 years ago (Pringle, 1998, p.1446). This was what’s known as the “agricultural revolution.”
Agriculture was seen as a necessity for survival by the first known people to put it into practice (“Agriculture, History of, 2008, para. 4). It made plenty of sense at the time. They knew that when they planted seed, they grew into food. They realized that they could stay with those crops and protect them and turn them into farms. That solved their problem of finding food sources on a daily basis, which they considered a good thing. Who wouldn’t? At the time, people didn’t realize how it could possibly be harmful.
However, some people—or at least one group, the Summarians of the Fertile Crescent, started developing some really clever ideas for their farming. They developed tools and harnessed animals that go beyond horticulture (“Agriculture, History of,” 2008, para. 5;). This lead to a surplus in the food supply, and, therefore, a population explosion. The population of humans (or any other animal) is dependent on its food supply (Hopfenberg, 2003, p. 1). The world is overpopulated today, because of the advances in agricultural technology.
Agriculture obviously also leads to domestication. If one plants a crop somewhere, knowing it takes time for it to grow, that person must stay near the field or garden at least until the crop has grown and been harvested. Further advances in agriculture also made nomadic people domesticate themselves. Mythology of many cultures somehow switched the story around and created the meme that “the world was made for man, and man was made to conquer and rule it” (Quinn, 1999, p. 181). People now seem to believe that anyone who does not want to be domesticated (pets and other animals included, but especially humans) are mentally ill or flawed somehow. America has laws against vagrancy and there are no squatter’s rights whatsoever.
The surplus in food is also what led to an economic class system. If there is extra food, it must be stored. If there is a need for storage, there must be places to store the food. If there are silos or whatever storing the food, there must be someone there to guard it. A farmer does not have enough time to plant, water, and harvest, all his crops, and then to also turn then into something edible (in the case of grains.) So, he hires someone to cut them down, someone to grind the wheat into flour, someone to put it in storage, someone to guard it, someone to, perhaps, sell it to some other group of people who don’t farm themselves. Hence, a hierarchy is born (Quinn, 1999, p. 70).
Now what happens when there is a surplus population in a confined area living domestically? Especially if this population has been introduced to the concept of not all people being equal? War. Conquest. The people needed more land on which to live. They needed more land on which to farm. Since they couldn’t expand what they considered their territory, they took someone else’s. They pillaged their neighbors. Those would wouldn’t assimilate were killed off. That’s why most ancient tribes that are still around today, such as the !Kung Bushmen of Sub-Saharan Africa are around. Nobody wanted their land. It’s suitable for living (hence the Bushmen still being alive,) but it’s not suitable for farming. Most tribes did assimilate. They did so at least to the point where they were full-time farmers too.
That’s how every country was influenced by the advent of agriculture. What does that have do with this country? America in particular was influenced. The influence too place later here. Even after all of Asia, the Middle-East, and Europe had been converted, there wasn’t enough room for them and their farms on those continents. When Christopher Columbus or whoever it was first came to the Americas, the Natives were not practicing agriculture. There were many horticulturalist tribes, and ones practicing a sustainable form of subsistence farming; but they did not believe they owned the land on which they farmed, and they did not treat it as property (Quinn, 1999, p. 50).
Shortly after the arrival of a myriad of European immigrants to “the New World,” the Industrial Revolution occurred. This is when many of the poisons such as cars, cell phones, and the atomic bomb were created. Their inventors didn’t know any better at the time. They were just trying to make things to improve on the lifestyle of their communities. Just as were those who started the Agricultural Revolution.
In summary, the technological change that has had the biggest impact on the world (and therefore the U.S.) is agriculture, as it is defined by anthropologist/philosopher/ecologist and writer Daniel Quinn. Agriculture is an invention of the people of in the “Fertile Crescent” that saved many lives, and created many—too many. That lead to a class system, money, formal government, war, and conquering of unexplored lands. That lead to America (as a formal country) coming into existence. America is where the Industrial Revolution occurred. Many things were invented. Much more breeding took place. Now we’re stuck with half the planet’s population starving to death, many people miserable with their lives, and a huge hole in the ozone layer.
Einstein wished he’d never discovered the theory of relativity when he saw his epiphany lead to the creation of the Atomic Bomb (Long, para.10). One can only hope that Karl Benz and Henry Ford would have felt the same way if they hadn’t kicked off before Al Gore wrote An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It. But what about the Summarians? If they had known that their brilliant idea of mechanistically planting crops and such would lead to most of the world living very unnaturally and even painfully, and with the planet itself having a bleak future at best, would they still have done it? Again, I’m afraid that they probably would. However, none of these atrocities are completely irreversible. Sure, we can recycle and use those weird spiraly florescent light bulbs and walk instead of driving to work. But what we really need is a paradigm shift. This is not the only way for humans to live.
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