The Farming Revolution

Nearly 12,000 years ago, traditional hunter-gatherer lifestyle followed by humans since their evolution were swept aside in favor of permanent settlements and steady food supply. Out of agriculture, cities and civilizations developed, and because crops and animals could now be farmed to meet demand, the global population rocketed—from some five million people 10,000 years ago, to more than seven billion today.

There was no single factor, or sequence of factors, that led people to take up farming in various parts of the world. In the Near East, for example, it’s estimated that climatic changes at the end of the last ice age brought seasonal conditions that favored annual plants like wild cereals. Elsewhere, such as in East Asia, risen pressure on natural food resources may have forced people to find homegrown solutions. But whatever the causes for its independent origins, farming sowed the seeds for the modern age.

The wild progenitors of crops including wheat, barley, and peas are discovered to the Near East region. Cereals were produced in Syria as long as 9,000 years ago, while figs were planted even earlier; prehistoric seedless fruits discovered in the Jordan Valley. Though the transition from wild harvesting was gradual, the switch from a nomadic to a settled way of life was marked by the presence of early Neolithic villages with homes equipped with grinding stones for processing grain.

The beginnings of rice and millet farming are dated to the same Neolithic period in China. Then came the Middle Ages, a time marked by selective cross-breeding of plants and animals for optimal quality and a method known as ridge and furrow farming - a plowing technique that employed oxen (and later, horses) that inspired related methods used today. The expansion of crop rotation, or the growing and harvesting of different crops on the same land while different seasons in the 16th century drove the modernization of farming methods.

Industrial Revolution in the 18th century that actually took humans from the past into the present. With crops that needed fewer workers, better soil replenishment and improved livestock care, more people could work in urban industries as a result of agricultural productivity. The 20th century introduced extensive use of machinery, fertilizer and pesticide technology, which matched with huge population growth. As a result, food became an affordable and accessible commodity in developed countries.

In the present time, we use modern techniques & methods to do farming. The demand of trending skilled people is on rise in agriculture industry because the old methods are replaced with the new one and if you want to learn these skills than contact Dolphin(PG) College - one of the finest Agriculture College in India that provides diverse types of Agriculture Courses such as Diploma in Agriculture, BSc in Agriculture, BSc in Forestry & MSc in Botany, MSc in Zoology, MSc in Microbiology and many more.