Agriculture enabled people to produce surplus food. They could use this extra food when crops failed or trade it for other goods.
Agriculture kept formerly nomadic people near their fields and led to the development of permanent villages. These became linked through trade. New economies were so successful in some areas that cities developed. The earliest societies based on intensive agriculture arose in the Fertile Crescent (which spans the Levant, modern-day Turkey, and Iran) and along the Nile River in Egypt. Other very early agricultural societies developed independently in Central America, East Asia, the Indus Valley, and West Africa.
Improved Technology
Many effective agricultural techniques have roots in pre-agricultural human history. For millennia, people have used controlled burning techniques to get rid of brush and debris, allowing edible plants to grow more abundantly and preventing larger wildfires during dry seasons. Today, large wildfires in North America and Australia demonstrate the importance of maintaining controlled burning practices perfected by many Native American tribes and Aboriginal Australian peoples.
Farming has also improved over the years. Early farmers cultivated small plots of land by hand, using axes to clear away trees and digging sticks to break up and till the soil. Over time, improved farming tools of bone, stone, bronze, and iron were developed. New methods of storage evolved. People began stockpiling foods in jars and clay-lined pits for use in times of scarcity. They also began making clay pots and other vessels for carrying and cooking food.
Around 5500 B.C.E., farmers in Mesopotamia developed simple irrigation systems. By channeling water from streams onto their fields, farmers were able to settle in areas once thought to be unsuited to agriculture. In Mesopotamia, Egypt, and China, people organized themselves and worked together to build and maintain better irrigation systems.
Around 5500 B.C.E., farmers in Mesopotamia developed simple irrigation systems. By channeling water from streams onto their fields, farmers were able to settle in areas once thought to be unsuited to agriculture. In Mesopotamia, Egypt, and China, people organized themselves and worked together to build and maintain better irrigation systems.
Early farmers also developed improved varieties of plants. For example, around 6000 B.C.E., a new variety of wheat arose in South Asia and Egypt. It was stronger than previous cereal grains, its hulls were easier to remove, and it could be made into bread.
As the Romans expanded their empire using warfare and coercion, they wrote manuals about the farming techniques they observed in Africa and Asia, and adapted them to land in Europe.
In China, farmers also adapted tools and methods from nearby empires. A variety of rice from Vietnam ripened quickly and allowed farmers to harvest several crops during a single growing season. This rice quickly became popular throughout China.
Many medieval European farmers used an open-field system of planting. One field would be planted in spring, another in autumn, and one would be left unplanted, or fallow. This system preserved nutrients in the soil, increasing crop production.
The leaders of the Islamic Golden Age (which reached its height around 1000 C.E.) in North Africa and the Middle East made agriculture into a science. Islamic Golden Age farmers learned crop rotation.
In the 15th and 16th centuries, explorers introduced new varieties of plants and agricultural products into Europe. From Asia, they carried home coffee, tea, and indigo, a plant used to make blue dye. From the Americas, they took plants such as potatoes, tomatoes, corn (maize), beans, peanuts, and tobacco. Some of these became staples and expanded people’s diets.
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