The Impact of of Agricultural - Industrial Sociological Transitions on Human-Environment Relationships

Today, the dominant human societies on earth are post-industrial. This is a period in the development of an economy or nation in which the relative importance of manufacturing lessens and that of services, information, and research grows. To reach this stage, such societies have experienced/gone through a myriad of social and technological changes/advancements. Historically, three periods of radical change were experienced by the current post-industrial nations. These have been called; the emergence of agriculture, the agricultural revolution and the industrial revolution. At these three stages, the relationship between the human species and it's environment changed dramatically. Whether these stages are specific to the development of Europe or whether they are universal is debatable but if today's developing countries are anything to go by it is at least a good guide. Pre-historical research suggests that Homo sapiens sapiens (modern humans) initially lived in small nomadic communities. This arrangement, combined with limited technology, limited human impact to a local scale as if a local resource was over-used, it would have ample time to recover when the humans left [Botkin, D. Keller, E. 1995]. Humans were hunter-gatherers with today's research putting emphasis on gathering with the procurement of meat being primarily from scavenging and even then it's contribution to the diet was surpassed by foraged fruit [Holmes, B 2003 ]. Domestication and the inception of permanent agriculture came as a natural extension off this lifestyle and developed in a context of already well organised animal and plant manipulation [Mannion, A.M. 2002].The dog was domesticated ~10,010BC ago followed by pigs, goats, sheep and cattle between ~7010BC and ~6010BC [Smith, B.D. 1995]. The emergence of agriculture marked a major turning point in human-environment relationships especially the role of humans in the global carbon cycle [Mannion, A.M. 2002]. The environmental repercussions of the adoption of agriculture were profound. Natural land cover was modified or altered entirely for agriculture. Such modification was directly proportional to the amount of carbon that was appropriated as food energy so as agricultural technology developed, the more substantial was the impact per unit are [Mannion, A.M. 2002]. The effect of agriculture was to provide the excess of food resources necessary for the maintenance of cities [Botkin, D. Keller, E. 1995]. In early cities the density of humans was much higher than the surrounding countryside, but the density was still too low to cause rapid, serious disturbance to the land. In fact, the waste provided by city dwellers and their animals was an important fertiliser for the surrounding farmlands [Botkin, D. Keller, E. 1995]. This didn't last long as transport improvements such as canels, wharves, roads,carriages and carts made it possible for cities to be located farther from agricultural areas. Further urban growth is at the expense of the surrounding countryside as everything natural in the city is paved over and consequentially dependence on surrounding countryside increases [Botkin, D. Keller, E. 1995]. Thomas SturgesAllard Assessment 6 Bsc Environmental Science EOE:1201

The first major agricultural technological advancement was the ox drawn plough developed in the Middle East 2000-3000BC [Sarre, P 1991]. This boosted the ability of humans to modify their environment. The plough buried weeds and made fields better for planting. However, they also arguably be called the first environmental technique to damage the environment directly. The weight of ox and plough caused the formation of plough pans' - a compacted layer of soil that dramatically reduced drainage causing water logging [Lawrence, E 1998]. Other agricultural technologies were environmentally safer bets such as the growth of legume crops to fix nitrogen in the soil and the use of cattle dung as a fertiliser. Both of these measures reduce the speed of soil degradation and potentially soil erosion. Implements developed and improved. A good example is the mouldboard plough developed in northern Europe. It allowed the cutting of grass sods, more effective destruction of weeds and effective ploughing of heavy clay soils [Sarre, P 1991]. A technological innovation still in use today is the use of nitrates as fertiliser. Beginning in the 1930s, nitrates from Chile were imported into Europe where they quickly replaced the traditional and natural methods of crop rotation and fertilisation with manure and seaweed [Mannion, A.M. 2002]. Until the middle of the 19th century, agriculture more or less worked with nature and relied heavily on man and animal power. This was all to change however. Gradually, traditional methods replaced with techniques dependant on scientific advances and the industrial production of inputs. First was the substitution of human and animal muscle with power based on commercial energy. -with threshing being performed almost entirely by steam power in 1860s Britain [Sarre, P 1991]. Mechanisation brought increases in productivity by increasing the amount that could be harvested from a field. This came with a price of decreasing the long-term productivity of the field however as mechanised harvesting machines removed more of the crop plant so fewer nutrients were returned to the soil. The final key technological advance was the discovery of the Haber-Bosch process in the early 1900s[Mannion, A.M. 2002]. This cut the price of chemical fertilisers, increasing their usage and consequentially increasing the productivity of agricultural land allowing for even larger cities.

References: "postindustrial." The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. Answers.com 28 Jan. 2010. http://www.answers.com/topic/post-industrial-society Holmes, B (2003) 'Farewell, man the hunter?' from New Scientist issue 2376 Smith, B.D. (1995) The emergence of agriculture W.H Freeman New York U.S.A Botkin, D. Keller, E. (1995) Environmental Science Earth As a Living Planet New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc Sarre, P (1991) Environment, Population and Development London: Hodder & Stoughton in association with The Open University Mannion, A.M. (2002) Dynamic World Land-cover and land-use change London: Arnold

Thomas SturgesAllard Assessment 6

Bsc Environmental Science EOE:1201