You read the title right! Wheat, in fact, domesticated us. Well, if you look at it in a certain way. Let me explain. This article was inspired by author Yuval Noah Harari, whose words I have paraphrased here, who proposed a really interesting argument that, while it sounds absurd at first, has a lot of reasoning behind it. The premise is that many of our cash crops (of which the most widespread is wheat) actually gave us the short end of the stick when it comes to agriculture. He also insists that the average peasant lived longer yet far more stressful, sickly, and poor lives.
The Agricultural Revolution was not some sudden shift in thinking; even if we often think of it like that, it took generations for farming to be entrenched as a way of life. Harari explains that the slow spread of farming is the main reason why humans didn’t see the unsavory effects in time. What are these unsavory effects? Well, we still see many of them today. No. 1 is Sickness. The average hunter-gatherer lived in small-knit groups AND due to a better diet had an exponentially better immune system than a peasant. When farmers started to live in large towns and raise lots of livestock, unhygienic conditions arose rapidly. As it is, eating weak gruel or stale bread every day doesn’t contribute much to your well-being.
No. 2 is, continuing from above, Diet. As mentioned above, farming just wheat does offer a surplus of grain, but eating weak carbs doesn’t get you anywhere in life – either in the looks side or just plain survival. The average forager ate (and still eats) lots of raw fruits, veggies, tubers, wild nuts, seafood, and meat, which really wasn’t possible when everyone just worked on WHEAT WHEAT WHEAT!
No. 3 is just labor division. The average farmer works way more than a forager does. A farmer has to plough the dirt, till it, seed it, then water the crops regularly, harvest it, and keep doing 8 hours a day 24/7. A forager, on the other hand, goes out when they’re hungry, gathers some goodies, comes back, has fun with the kids, and goes on a hunt for dinner. The division of labor also created elite rulers who made the lives of peasants even harder. The only advantage here is that a lot of art and culture would not have been possible without these elites.
No. 4 is WAR. Violence is prevalent even among hunter-gatherer groups, but the need to defend one’s territory and one’s items significantly decreases when one does not have any items, so to speak, and one’s territory keeps changing. Systematic, organized war is (usually) a result of agriculture and the resulting division of labor that came with “civilization”.
No. 5 is utter, complete FAILURE. See, you put in so much effort for a whole year for some extra wheat, but… you did NOT predict the coming of a swarm of locusts that ate all your beautiful wheat, and now you have no food and you’re gonna slowly starve or freeze to death, whichever comes first. Foragers don’t have this problem because they rely on a variety of food sources. No bananas? No problemo, just eat a roasted quail or something.
Even today, these unsavory effects are seen widely. The effect of not running through savannas chasing after some poor antelope is a huge factor in our general poor health. We lead a sedentary lifestyle in which the greatest form of physical activity is just farming wheat; and now, we even have machines for that – leading to high obesity, cholesterol, heart disease, and a bunch of other stuff that I’m sure a more qualified person (like a doctor) would be able to tell you.
Coming back to the original argument, wheat has it pretty good for a plant, “using” humans for its own benefit. However, we can’t deny the growth that a sedentary lifestyle has led to, including advanced technology, art, architecture, and so much more. I guess we just have a symbiotic relationship. Next time, I’m gonna talk about the first civilizations and how cities originated.
Anay Ganesh 