What was the important of agricuture in civilization?

Question

where did the first great valley civilization develop and how did it impact on civilization?

Answer 1

Civilisation could not arise until there was an excess of agricultural production available for farmers to feed a population that did not feed itself as it was engaged in pursuits other than growing crops or raising animals. Before civilisation arose people lived at a subsistence level, i.e they grew enough/raised enough animals to feed themselves and their immediate families. Agriculture could only move away from that state in places where there was sufficient water to raise good crops and animals. hence the earliest civilisations grew up un larhe river valleys - those of the Indus, Nile and Tigris/Euphrates, all of which contributed towards the growth of civilisation.

Answer 2

Without agriculture you would need something of other value to trade for food  or you would starve.  That is, unless you invaded other countries to get your food.  One of the big problems in the world is (and has been) that the ability to have a good agricultural product was there, but the people were too uneducated to grow anything, or their govenment leaders were too bent on just taking it from others to get their own agricultural potentials up and going.     China is a good example.  They invaded Tibet and enslaved their prople to help feed the Chinese masses when they could have fed them with their own produce (Socialism doesn't work!)  North Korea is another country that is starving becasue their dictator is taking the food to support a large army instead of the people.     Many of the countries in Africa right now were FOOD EXPORTERS just a generation ago.  Now they are starving to death under dictators or Moslem Terrorist Governments.    

Land that could have fed MILLIONS in the Middle East lay dormant for centuries until someone came in and irrigated, planted and tended the land as they did in Israel.   Just across the borders of Israel, desert remains.... the oil rich leaders of most of Israel's neighbors could have grown food for decades.

NOW the problem is Keeping your agriculture for yourself in the face of invaders!   There are always people trying to get something for nothing.   China, the former Soviet Union, many African dictators, etc.   You will now have to defend it.

Answer 3

Before agrarian economies developed, food supply (or rather the lack of it) meant that people had to live in very small groups and were forced to follow herds of prey animals, or move from one area of wild plant foods to another. This was exactly the same lifestyle lived in the historic period by native Australians and many native Americans.

The valley civilizations developed roughly at the same time - the Indus Valley, Mesopotamian, Chinese and  Egyptian cultures were all originally based on village farming communities. As food production outstripped local needs, the excess could be sold or traded, leading to commerce and larger communities - eventually towns and cities. So the main impact was settlement - the opposite of the earlier nomadic lifestyle.

In all cases the driving force towards civilization was (depending on the area) rice, wheat, barley, oats, rye, sheep, cattle and goats.

Answer 4

To put it succintly, it allowed people to settle in one area, and gave them free time to think. Thus, WHAMO!, civilization.

The first great civilization was Egypt, the full extent and impact of it's history we still do not know. (Post a question for further discussion on the importance of Egypt, and the debateable topics of Egyptology. (i.e. the Great Pyramids, who, when, what, and why.))