Changes

Few developments have affected our societies, cultural development, and environment as much as agriculture. Plant domestication has not only allowed many of us to pursue other interests, as we are freed from the daily need to forage for food, but it has also meant we have chosen a lifestyle we were not initially evolved to. We have become mostly sedentary societies that have increasingly focused on developing technologies to solve many of our problems and enhance our lives. However, this has also made us vulnerable to environmental damage, all the while global population continues to reach record levels. Nevertheless, all of our major technologies and social developments today would have not been possible without plant domestication. Everything from the way we structure our families, to how we build our homes, and even pass on our possessions to our children is dependent on how agriculture became the dominant lifestyle. Agriculture has made it possible for scientists and others to spend their time on endeavours that would have been unthinkable in our early, mobile societies. Today, it is the ever increasing need to develop new technologies or products to increase productivity of agriculture that continue to drive technical and social change, similar to how plant domestication and agriculture did more than 10,000 years ago.