It should be no surprise that the first major technological revolution catered to one of our most basic needs: food.

Not so long ago, most people were spending almost their entire lives working to put food on the table. Today, most of us spend less than an hour a day earning the money we need to buy food. 

This is the work of the agricultural revolution.  

Population explosion

To really understand the effect of the agricultural revolution, one needs to look no further than human population growth. 

Since the 17th century, when this revolution got started in the West, the number of humans on the planet increased almost by a factor of 20!

There were all sorts of theories that exponential human growth would outstrip food supply, leading to a great catastrophe. 

But that never happened.

Technology managed to keep up with exponential population growth. And today, those of us lucky enough to be born into the top 20% are much more likely to die from too many calories than too few. 

Primitive instincts

If Homo sapiens was in some way an enlightened species, this technology revolution would have been used to increase living standards rather than numbers.  

But, as would be the case for any other animal, our primitive instincts for consumption and procreation quickly devoured the excesses provided by technology. 

As a result, even though technology has given us a truly incredible increase in the amount of available food, there are still 1.9 billion people worldwide going hungry on a regular basis. 

Environmental impact

Agriculture uses huge amounts of land and water and produces lots of environmental pollutants and greenhouse gases. 

Animal products are the primary source of these impacts, despite providing only 18% of global calorie consumption. 

Animal welfare

Low-cost animal products often come from factory farms with terrible conditions for the animals.

Indeed, if we were to count all sentient beings in our quantification of global welfare, the agricultural revolution has caused tremendous global suffering. 

Time to evolve

Humanity has the capacity to reach the higher level of consciousness required to finally master this centuries old technological revolution.

If we do, we can enjoy the tremendous benefits of an abundant and diverse food supply without the huge problems outlined above. 

There are certainly some encouraging signs of growing societal awareness, but this process needs to be accelerated as much as possible. 

We’ll get back to that next week…