LAWLzoR

Agriculture is the cultivation and growth of plants and crops for the intended use of eating and turning into life-sustaining medicines and other foods. It's been going on for thousands and thousands of years. From the early Sumerians and Babylonians all the way to today, so that's at least 4,000 years. Agriculture brought about the ability to live in one place instead of depending on how the cattle and buffalo moved. It allowed for more autocracy when figuring out where to live and how to live, because you could stay in one place and didn't have to travel lightly in order to remain comfortable. Of course when agriculture was created or first put into used not every civilization did this.

Plenty of peoples in the ancient times didn't just drop their ways of life in exchange for agriculture right away. It was a gradual change from herding animals to cultivating wheat, rice, and other sustainable crops. The most famous example was the Mongols. While they did tend to stay within one area in relation to the rest of the world, it was because they were herding animals and could sustain themselves within that space. There were plenty of herding civilizations before them though.

This gradual change to agriculture wasn't a simple upgrade from herding. Herding did have its good sides too. The animals hunted could provide not only meat for eating but also fur, and bones for tools, housing, and clothing. Agricultural civilizations didn't stop hunting animals though either. They still hunted and got the meat and clothing they wanted and needed, but they adopted agriculture along with it. Agriculture mainly replaces gathering in the "hunting and gathering" part of civilizations.

Gathering was (to put it simply) going out into the woods, plains, or other lush areas and collecting the berries, fruits, vegetables, and other non-meat foods people could find.

Agriculture did allow for more sustainable civilizations, and for more sustainable population growth, but at the same time it caused some civilizations to go into massive hungers due to droughts, or incorrect planting methods. It also created, in a way, sexism. Usually the jobs were divided that the women would gather and the men would hunt. This kept things equal as gathering was just as important than hunting, thus meaning that both sides had to work together and be kind to one another in order to really survive. Under agriculture however, while the women plowed the fields and prepared them for growth the men were off hunting the animals. The men could also have time to grow the wheat or rice after or before hunting, thus leading the belief that they were more needed or important than the women. You can see the details of hunter-gather or herding civilizations about their gender relations that they were actually more free than agricultural societies.

Was agriculture worth it? Definitely. While sexism, more easily spread disease, and possibility for droughts leading to massive famines were created, more sustainable populations and lives were created. A surplus of food was often the case with agricultural societies which allowed for people being less hungry and longer lives. Without agriculture, it would've been very difficult for our modern society to be created. Because not everyone had to go out to hunt or gather, people had the time and resources to made things such as tools, textiles, and other luxuries. Better tools lead to more food, which lead to bigger and more effective brains, leading to more creative and better tools, leading to more and bigger food, and the cycle goes on. Without agriculture becoming a big staple of the world, the modern world would look very different than how it does today.