Food Systems

Over the last 10,000 years, food production and consumption have been rigorously engineered to meet our dietary habits. A growing body of scientific evidence suggests such practices are adversely impacting the health of the planet and its people. Changing food systems is not an easy task. But despite many adversities, experts believe tweaking food systems could be a game-changer

- JAYDEV JANA

For 2.5 million years humans fed themselves by gathering plants and hunting wild animals that lived and bred without their intervention. Homo sapiens – derived from Latin terms homo (human) + sapiens (wise) – emerged around 300,000 years ago in Africa, migrated globally and replaced other human species, such as Neanderthals and Denisovans. Sapiens continued to live by gathering and hunting everywhere they went. All these changes occurred around 100,000 years ago, when they began to devote almost all their time and efforts to manipulating the lives of a few animals and plant species. They thought and worked day and night and produced more fruits, grains and meat. Thus the revolution ushered in human history is called the Agricultural Revolution.

The transition to agriculture started around 9500-8500 BC. Wheat and goats were domesticated by approximately 9000 BC; peas and lentils around 8000 BC; horses by 4000 BC; and grapevines by 3500 BC. Some other plants and animals were domesticated subsequently. Yuval Noah Harari, an Israeli medievalist and military historian, wrote in his book entitled Sapiens; A Brief History of Humankind: "Even today, with all-out advanced technologies, more than 90 per cent of the calories that feed humanity come from a handful of plants that our ancestors domesticated between 9500 and 3500 BC – wheat, rice, maize, potatoes, millet and barley. No noteworthy plant or animal has been domesticated in the last 2000 years. If our minds are those of hunter-gatherers, our cuisine is that of ancient farmers."