# Why did humans get into the agriculture business **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 30, 2012, 6:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-humans-get-into-the-agriculture-business/629825 "2012-07-30T06:04:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Ele\_the\_Stoic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/4bbf92/32.png) [@Ele\_the\_Stoic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ele_the_Stoic)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2012, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-humans-get-into-the-agriculture-business/629825/81 "2012-08-04T06:02:33Z")
> [@md2000](#): > > It seems when explorers (Lewis & Clark, or guys in pith helmets, etc.) encountered tribes of various sorts - herdsmen, hunter-gatherers, subsistence farmers - they generally found them to be very friendly, until/unless their typical European behaviour pissed them off. (Thinking Magellan here). The logic is simple - a bunch of obvious strangers, who seem to be passing through, are not a large group, and do not seem to be serious exploiting your local resources - these are a pleasant and interesting diversion. A tribal family group or bigger, obviously living the same lifestyle and horning in on your hunting grounds, is a threat to be taken seriously. The native populations welcomed Cortez, Pizarro, Columbus, the Vikings (Skraelings), the Pilgrims, the Jamestown colonists, and the Roanoke colonists. Militant distrust by natives on first contact is vastly over-assumed. > [@md2000](#): > > Is a herdsman really the same as HG? I would think it is a distinct step which may or may not lead to agriculture. Herdmen probably realized that their corrals could be expanded to bigger pens for specific tasks (giving birth). Once habitats were permanently fixed, the scale and size of pastures could be expanded. Somewhere there’s a trade between using a full-time herder and fencing in pastures; I’m guessing this happened as the “personal land” shrank. WIth reduced area, fencing became easier, and herd size became smaller. With a family-sized farm, the number of people available to watch the herd became less, and all hands were needed for field tending rather than herd-watching. Well… Depending on how nitpicky you want to get, shepherds are herdsmen of sheep, with no other difference. The distinction we have now largely comes from the etymology, expanded through usage. Sheep require less land and food than most other domesticated animals thanks to their diminutive size, and so they’re more likely to find sufficient food within the general confines of a roughly defined “pasture”. Bovines, which is usually what is inferred from the term “herdsman” (at least in my neck of the woods), require very large amounts of food. I live near some dairies, and the amount of food they have to import daily is staggering. You can’t take a herd of cows up to the highlands and have them graze on the grass there - there’s not enough. They need huge open plains, like the steppes of Mongolia or the savannahs of Africa to survive. The size of the pasture required for the animals is what determines how nomadic you have to be. You’re going to pen your animals in at night regardless of how much feed they require, since you can’t afford to have them get lost, or lose them to unchecked predation. They’re pretty simple to make structures, such as a Maasai enkang, or an Nguni kraal. > [@md2000](#): > > OTOH, the expression “Tragedy of the Commons” comes from the situation (IIRC, from a study of sub-sahara villages) that even with agriculture and allocated fields, pasture land was still communal. (A situation in some places in medieval Europe too). Just easier that way. It’s incredibly complicated to compute how much land every person needs for their animals, even if they only have one or two amidst larger groups of herders; there’s no hard limits to what the pasture is in situations like that anyway - just go out further if you want your herd to have fresh grass. ---
**Author:** ![Esox\_Lucius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/848f3c/32.png) [@Esox\_Lucius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Esox_Lucius)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2012, 7:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-humans-get-into-the-agriculture-business/629825/82 "2012-08-04T07:00:18Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > You make it sound like it’s just a labelling distinction, or something. It really isn’t. Just because it’s a Term of Art doesn’t make it only useful to specialists. It’s an information-rich distinction that has all sorts of implications for lifestyles etc. Sorry, that was my bruised ego snarking. I’m over it now. Thanks for explaining it (and Blake too). Ignorance fought and all that. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2012, 10:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-humans-get-into-the-agriculture-business/629825/83 "2012-08-04T10:58:27Z")
> [@md2000](#): > > It seems when explorers (Lewis & Clark, or guys in pith helmets, etc.) encountered tribes of various sorts - herdsmen, hunter-gatherers, subsistence farmers - they generally found them to be very friendly, until/unless their typical European behaviour pissed them off. (Thinking Magellan here). The logic is simple - a bunch of obvious strangers, who seem to be passing through, are not a large group, and do not seem to be serious exploiting your local resources - these are a pleasant and interesting diversion. A tribal family group or bigger, obviously living the same lifestyle and horning in on your hunting grounds, is a threat to be taken seriously. While I generally agree, we should be wary of generalisations. The Maori of NZ tried to kill and eat the crew of the Endeavour, and the Aborigines of North Queensland tried to burn them alive. So in no sense are all HGs and subsistence farmers friendly to outsiders. Most i will grant you, but not all. > [@](#): > > Is a herdsman really the same as HG? Not in any conceivable sense. Herders are agriculturalists. You woudln’t call a Texas cowboy a HG would you? Yet he is indisputably a herder. > [@](#): > > Somewhere there’s a trade between using a full-time herder and fencing in pastures; I’m guessing this happened as the “personal land” shrank. More likely it happened when labor became valuable. Remember, in most societies over most of history, the herders were children who couldn’t really do much other work. Even today in places such as North Africa or Afghanistan, it’s the norm for herders to be kids. Adults have much better work to do. It was only when th cost of labour rose to the point that you couldn’t employ full-time herders that most places started using fences. > [@Ele\_the\_Stoic](#): > > Sheep require less land and food than most other domesticated animals thanks to their diminutive size, and so they’re more likely to find sufficient food within the general confines of a roughly defined “pasture”. Less food per animal, more food per kg. IN terms of the amount of feed required to the amount of meat produced sheep are quite inefficient. > [@](#): > > Bovines, which is usually what is inferred from the term “herdsman” (at least in my neck of the woods), require very large amounts of food. I live near some dairies, and the amount of food they have to import daily is staggering. But that has nothing to do with size. If you were feeding lactating ewes to produce the same amount of milk you would need considerably \*more \*feed. Milk production is what demands the high amount of feed, not the species. > [@](#): > > You can’t take a herd of cows up to the highlands and have them graze on the grass there - there’s not enough. :dubious: Alpine transhumance, taking animals up to the highlands and have them graze, \*developed \*with cattle. It was only applied to sheep much later, and even today is more often used with cattle than sheep. If there is enough grass to produce 100kg of mutton, then there is also enough to produce 100kg of beef. The only time what you just said is true is when there is literally too little grass to feed even a single beast > [@](#): > > They need huge open plains, like the steppes of Mongolia or the savannahs of Africa to survive. :dubious: You had better tell that to the cattle producers of England. They have been raising beef cattle in 1 acre paddocks for the last 3, 000 years. > [@](#): > > You’re going to pen your animals in at night regardless of how much feed they require, since you can’t afford to have them get lost, or lose them to unchecked predation. And yet very few cultures have ever penned their cattle at night in clement weather. Outside Africa cattle were mostly penned as protection from the elements, not to protect them from predation or getting lost. With a herder sleeping nearby, cattle are immune to any predator aside from a big cat, an they are nomadic herd animals, so getting lost isn’t really an issue. Heck, none of the big stations in Australia ever pen their cattle, despite having sizes well in excess of 10, 00 square km. Cattle simply don’t get lost. ---
**Author:** ![Ele\_the\_Stoic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/4bbf92/32.png) [@Ele\_the\_Stoic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ele_the_Stoic)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2012, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-humans-get-into-the-agriculture-business/629825/84 "2012-08-05T06:36:46Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > Alpine transhumance, taking animals up to the highlands and have them graze, \*developed \*with cattle. It was only applied to sheep much later, and even today is more often used with cattle than sheep. > > … > > You had better tell that to the cattle producers of England. They have been raising beef cattle in 1 acre paddocks for the last 3, 000 years. That was in specific reference to England’s highlands; cattle and dairies in England tend to occupy the western plains (relatively speaking, of course): Cornwall, South-West Wales, North-West Mercia, Northern Cumbria and Dumfiresshire in Scotland, and a grouping at the eastern end of the Grampian mountains near the coast of Scotland. Smaller populations of cattle are found in Sussex and Hampshire, and a bit in Norfolk and Suffolk. The highlands of Scotland, and the larger mountains of England are largely devoid of Cattle, but have plentiful sheep. Of course, there are also sociological components to this, but the biggest reason for it is because Sheep have an easier time living in the highlands than do Cattle. > [@Blake](#): > > But that has nothing to do with size. If you were feeding lactating ewes to produce the same amount of milk you would need considerably \*more \*feed. Milk production is what demands the high amount of feed, not the species. > > … > > If there is enough grass to produce 100kg of mutton, then there is also enough to produce 100kg of beef. The only time what you just said is true is when there is literally too little grass to feed even a single beast Cattle weigh between 400-1200+ lbs, sheep weigh between 99-350 lbs. Cattle normally consume ~1.4-4% of their bodyweight per day (5.6 - 48 lbs), depending on the feed type and age of the cattle. Sheep will usually eat ~2.5-4% (2.5 - 14 lbs) of their bodyweight per day, again depending on breed and age. So yes, cattle need more food than sheep to survive. > [@Blake](#): > > And yet very few cultures have ever penned their cattle at night in clement weather. Outside Africa cattle were mostly penned as protection from the elements, not to protect them from predation or getting lost. Outside Africa they were mostly penned to discourage and prevent theft. The only major predator in Europe was the wolf, and storms were not as big of a factor since they had more buffering between themselves and the ocean because of the size of the continent. In Mesopotamia, they were penned to prevent predation from lions and tigers. In China and SE Asia, cattle aren’t a major food source, but instead used as beasts of burden. The major purpose of penning animals across any culture is for ease of access, however, so you don’t have to go chasing them down if they don’t want to cooperate while you saddle, milk, or shear them; which is why handling pens are always smaller than grazing or exercise pens. > [@Blake](#): > > With a herder sleeping nearby, cattle are immune to any predator aside from a big cat, an they are nomadic herd animals, so getting lost isn’t really an issue. What do you mean “immune”? > [@Blake](#): > > Heck, none of the big stations in Australia ever pen their cattle, despite having sizes well in excess of 10, 00 square km. Cattle simply don’t get lost. Herds in Australia number considerably more than an entire Maasai tribe’s, and more than most early herding cultures of Europe, based on A) Logistical issues and B) Archaeological evidence showing relatively small numbers of cattle compared to modern herds. A hunting and gathering culture without agriculture would not have enough food to support a large herd of cattle, let alone massive herds; and they don’t have the technology for location devices and transmitters to collar some the cattle with that modern ranchers do. ---
**Author:** ![FuzzyOgre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@FuzzyOgre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FuzzyOgre)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2012, 10:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-humans-get-into-the-agriculture-business/629825/85 "2012-08-16T10:57:52Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > I don’t know who “we” are, but anthropologists do not consider any people living in the Amazon to be Hunter Gatherers. much less archetypal. It’s not actually possible for a human to survive in rainforest as a HG. Those people have been agriculturalists for thousands of years. Before the affect of European disease they lived in cities of thousands within Empires of millions. These people are not HGs who get a large part of their calories form farming. They are agriculturalists who get a minority of their calories form non-farmed sources. > . The Pirahã people seem to come pretty close. ---
**Author:** ![furdmort](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@furdmort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furdmort)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2012, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-humans-get-into-the-agriculture-business/629825/86 "2012-08-16T16:36:48Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > for HGs, net available food varies wildly, in several ways: > > Seasonal variation - there are lean periods in the year - and whilst you can store surplus of foraged foods, it’s more efficient to store farmed grains, root vegetables and penned, fattened animals - especially if they’re already on your doorstep. > > Year-on-year variation - some years, the snozzberries are abundant, other years, there are almost none. Agriculture is a way of exerting more control on the harvest. > > Long-term variation - populations of predators and prey (where the prey also happens to be human food - say, rabbits or deer) tend to fluctuate over the course of many years, driven in a feedback loop (lots of rabbits makes the foxes successful, which boosts the fox population, which reduces the rabbit population, which means the foxes are less successful, which means the rabbits can increase, etc) - farming food animals in protective captivity controls this variable, somewhat at least. [You are aware of what snozzberries really are, aren’t you?](http://www.cracked.com/quick-fixes/the-filthiest-joke-ever-hidden-in-childrens-movie/) ---
**Author:** ![wood95](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f17d59/32.png) [@wood95](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wood95)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2012, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-humans-get-into-the-agriculture-business/629825/87 "2012-08-16T20:43:33Z")
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