Agriculture, or farming, is the simplification of nature's food webs and the rechanneling of energy for human planting and animal consumption. Huh? You may ask. To simplify, agriculture involves redirecting nature's natural flow of the food web. The natural flow of the food web is-the sun provides light to plants. Plants convert sunlight into sugars which provide food for the plants(this process is called photosynthesis). Plants provide food for herbivores (plant-eating animals, i.e., sloths) and the herbivores provide food for carnivores (meat-eating animals, i.e., jaguars). Decomposers or bacteria, break down plants or animals that have died. Nutrients from the plants and animals go back into the soil and the whole process starts anew.
What happens with agriculture is that this web is interrupted. Instead of having herbivores eat the plants, the plants are protected for human consumption. This means that not only are plant eating animals excluded from the food web, but
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