Farming and Gathering

This is a bit of a continuation on the observation of human harmony vs. discord with nature. At the most fundamental level, many (most?) types of agriculture fall into the second category: the assertion of humanity’s dominance over the land. (Of course, I do not mean to say that farming is inherently evil.) The earliest human ancestors were hunter-gatherers, a style that intuitively blends with the rest of nature. The agricultural revolution is often marked as the dawn of civilization, but it is equally important to remember that the introduction of agriculture was not a “Eureka!” moment; rather farming slowly was adapted into people’s lives, some cultures making it more dominant than others. The hunter-gatherer tribe that dabbles with a bit of farming still seems to be living in a harmonious relationship with the land. The problem comes not with the practice of planting and harvesting, but with the implementation.

The lifestyle of the hunter-gatherer automatically implies harmony with nature because their very survival is dependent upon nature providing useful plants or plentiful game. The addition of supplemental farming can maintain this human-nature relationship (after all, squirrels store enough acorns to last the winter). However, once human tribes began growing more food than they needed, they began to put themselves at odds with nature. Before, nature provided and nature took away. Now, with large-scale food production, humans no longer had to succumb to nature. (Notice that squirrels do not store more food than they need to last the winter.) Surplus food production led to increased population, which, as the story goes, gave birth to civilization.

So do we all quit our jobs and go collect berries? Well, probably not. But there is a disconnect between humanity and nature that has existed for at least 10,000 years and is manifest in everything from food production to building construction. I think it is possible to reclaim the healthier relationship with nature in the modern era without reverting to the hunter-gatherer lifestyle, but like any paradigm shift it will not come easy.