Why did farming replace hunting and gathering in most cultures?

Question

Why did farming replace hunting and gathering in most cultures?

Answer 1

....For the very same reasons why, a bit later, industrialisation took priority over farming !

People have always wanted to lead fuller and more prosperous lives - for which an increased purchasing power is always vital.

Initially, people found that farming brought-in more produce than mere hunting and gathering ever could - which gave the farmers something more with which to barter and acquire their homes' needs.

So, the cultures' shift to agriculture was a natural.

Similarly, with the advent of industrialisation and mechanisation, people felt that these would be more remunerative than farming. So, again came a major switch...

...And nowadays, those who were once satisfied with qualifying for an industrial career, are opting for careers in IT !

All such switchovers in human history, which are thus solely based on plain human need and greed, are clubbed together and categorised by economists and historians as 'progress' !

But has the human race truly progressed ?

Where our ancestors hunted animals and birds for food, we are hunting and hurting our career/business rivals ! And where our forefathers [and 'foremothers' !] were gathering fruits, roots and seeds, the present generation is busy gathering 'information' to market !...

:-}

Ours is certainly a mad, mad, mad world !

Answer 2

Maybe they just ate all the animals near them.  I think farming provided first leisure time for art and such.

Answer 3

More likely to be a reliable source of food than random animal or vegetable sources.

Answer 4

easier to manage, profit, more reliable, less hassle

Answer 5

consistant better use of time

Answer 6

because when you hunt you get short term food and requires i guess a lot more physical abilities and skills, however when you farm you provide food for a longer period of time requiring less skill. and if everyone in the world suddenly decided that they were going to hunt instead of farm dont you think that edible animals would become extinct

Answer 7

Where are all of these hunting and gathering vs farming questions coming from?  There has been a dozen in the last two or three weeks.

Answer 8

it makes the job of finding something to eat easier and more dependable.

Answer 9

Sounds like a homework question. OK, I'll give you the answer. In a word: population growth. OK, that was 2 words.

When there were just a few of us, production of food by hunting and gathering was adequate most of the time. But as human groups grew larger and spread out across the land (and sea) their growing numbers tended to use up what mother had provided and other means of getting food had to be found. Ancient peoples were not very good conservationists, so they frequently had to move to find new "hunting grounds."

Another outcome of population growth was specialization -someone had to bring up the children, tend the fires, look out for enemies, build and repair shelter, carry water, etc. And thus, fewer folks were around to bring home the bacon, so to speak, and they therefore had to get better at it.

In time, people began to notice that the seeds they spit out from wild berries would sprout and new plants would come forth, and how a bit of tough old yam would send off shoots, etc. I think you see how the idea of intentionally planting seeds occurred to folks back then. And so, as human groups were spreading out geographically, they were also growing culturally and technically -learning how things worked. Eventually, trees were felled to clear land, then burned to fertilize the soil ("slash and burn," the anthropologists call it). This made production go UP. But those early farming attempts also laid waste to the land; the soil became barren very quickly, and rain eroded the ground. So, the groups moved on.

Eventually, some groups discovered land masses that were so fertile with climates so temperate that growing things was EASY. And these places (such as Egypt, Iraq, India, China, Central America) were therefore the first places where civilization -meaning large organized and specialized human populations- first took hold.

They didn't wear out the land so quickly, because most of these places were near rivers which flooded every year. In so doing, the rivers dumped in new dirt in the form of mud from up-stream, and agriculture could continue to grow.

There are some cultures that don't need farming; islands of the South Pacific are a good example. So many good things to eat grow there -in addition to plentiful sea life- that it was unnecessary to farm the land. Just reach up and take a banana to go with that crabmeat dinner.

I hope this gets you started.

Answer 10

it is easier to accumulate resources this way

moreover it resolves the question of being nomadic

and allows for a culture to be built in a fixed environment

Answer 11

because it was easier and more efficient to just have food right there. you didn't have to follow the heards of animals and hunt them. instead you could grow food in your backyard, raise animals, and populate one area. that made everyone live longer but it domesticated people.

land was a crucial thing for survival. people fought for it. people had wars over land. farming populations could defeat hunter gatherers since they had a ready supply of food. while the hunter gatherers had to all go and hunt for their own food.

if you look at america, its farmers that keep us alive. they grow and raise all of our food.

Answer 12

More reliable source of food.  It also resulted in the formation of communities, and that, in turn, meant that groups could protect their resources from raiders far better that could small groups of hunter gatherers.