Agriculture in the Past

Dig a hole, plant a seed,...

Agriculture started to spread spontaneously around the world some 10 000 years ago [16]. It was the start for the first high developed civilizations in todays Mexico, China, the Middle East, and Borneo and improved their standard of life significantly, changing the human society forever [46]. And even though agriculture showed some important inventions like the crop rotation, the plow, draft animals and irrigation systems along the way, the principle execution never changed: "dig a hole, plant a seed, fertilize it, irrigate it, pick out the weeds, harvest the crop, ship/store/sell it" [13]. As fascinating this is, as important is the other fact that humanity was only able to grow in numbers and thrive as soon as the efficiency of agriculture increased [49]. This not only always solved problems of distribution of the fresh products but also the the nutrient and caloric amounts available per person. So, learn how humanity was able to develop during the industrialization in the next chapter here.