Agricultural Revolution Still Affects Humanity’s Modern Life

The Agricultural Revolution took place about 12,000 years ago and brought many benefits. Find out how the lifestyle changes humanity embraced then also led to the conflict, disease, fitness and nutrition issues we cope with today.

I come from a long line of farmers. My ancestors came to this area as pioneer settlers before the confederation of Canada.

Our family kept up that agricultural tradition for five generations. Even before that, their ancestors had been farming in Ayrshire, Scotland.

Starting in the 1960s, my parents’ generation gradually moved off the land and into towns and cities. It was something of a revolution where hundreds of 100-acre family farms merged into a handful of larger operations.

Leaving the Farm Was a Definite Lifestyle Change

It was a definite lifestyle change. For the rest of their lives, my parents seemed to mentally divide their marriage into two phases, the dividing line being “when we left the farm.”

Even so, it wasn’t as radical a revolution as what happened 12,000 years ago. That’s when, after being hunter-gatherers for millions of years, humans suddenly shifted to agriculture.