Picnics Past and Present

Good afternoon, and welcome back to Picnics Past and Present. Today we will be setting the stage for discussions to come by providing a very brief overview of the evolution of food production through time, starting with early humans and moving toward the present date. I feel that it’s necessary to review the basics before we dive into specific topics, so I apologise in advance for the length of this post. I’ll be back after the weekend for a lighter (and more delicious) post – promised! And so we dive in…

Early humans did not have the luxury of wandering to their local Sainsbury’s supermarket (which is coincidentally located next door to a Waitrose supermarket) to pick up a ready-made meal in time for supper. They also didn’t have the option of heading to a fast food chain instead of braving the cold for a hunt, having a cosy meal in a restaurant instead of rationing provisions, or visiting a farmers’ market instead of foraging in nearby forests. Instead, these early humans lived in small groups and relied on hunting and gathering to satisfy their daily demands in energy and nutrients. Contrary to popular belief, these early humans did not live in total harmony with their surroundings. Recent research has brought to light evidence of the significant impact of early humans on their environments in part due to their extensive use of fire, with earliest impacts being as drastic as potentially contributing to the extinction of megafauna in the late Pleistocene (Steffen et al., 2007).

My local supermarkets (Google Maps, 2013)

Transitioning away from this hunter-gatherer lifestyle brings us to the advent of agriculture, some 12,000 to 10,000 years before present (BP). This transition marks a fundamental change in the relationship between humans and their environment, and is one that did not occur uniformly across the globe. The first traces of agriculture are dated back to the end of the last Pleistocene glaciation around 11,700 BP, though in some parts of the world traces of cultivation date as far back as 15,000 BP. (Crawford et al., 2012). Environmental impacts of this transition include the alteration of global biodiversity through domestication and the modification of landforms. For instance, in the large islands of the Mediterranean basin, this transition resulted in the replacement of endemic fauna by domesticated and wild mainland fauna (Zeder, 2008).

Comparisons of domesticated wild species (left of each pair) and their never-domesticated close relatives (right) (Diamond, 2002)

If we fast-forward several thousands of years to the 1800’s, we come to the onset of industrialisation which is characterised by a shift from an agrarian-type economy to an economy based on industry and machine manufacture. The most important features of this transition include the use of new materials such as iron and steel, the new use of fossil fuels and motive power, the invention of new machines and the factory system, improved methods in transportation and communication, and the application of science to industry (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2013). The transition towards a mechanised world gave humans the ability to harness energy in order to feed their needs, resulting in a massive growth in global populations. The environmental impacts of this transition were clearly noticeable by the early to mid-20^th century, and include large-scale deforestation for agriculture, the anthropogenic transformation of hydrological systems, and the increase in atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO₂) and nitrous oxide (N₂O). Progresses in global industrialisation were paused during the Great Depression and the First and Second World Wars, however greatly accelerated following 1945. This “Great Acceleration” has brought us to current-day conditions, and is characterised by exponential growth of population, high rates of urban migration, enormous increases in the use of fossil fuels, among others (Steffen et al., 2009). In terms of global food production, this transition to an industrialised world means that humans are able to produce food at rates never experienced before, and with this comes a variety of environmental impacts ranging from the eutrophication of freshwater systems through agricultural nutrient inputs (Withers & Lord, 2002) to the increased emissions of greenhouse gases from intensive agriculture (Friel et al., 2009).

Intensive agriculture (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2013)

This brings us to the end of this very quick overview of food production through time. To summarise, the need for humans to obtain and produce food has had fundamental environmental implications, today and in the past. However, the shift towards the industrialisation of food production means that the food we rely on for survival today stresses the environment at a much greater rate than ever before. A major modern-day challenge for generations to come will be to feed the growing global populations in a more sustainable way.