Making A Living

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Chapter 5

• Making A Living

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Subsistence Patterns

• The ways societies transform the material
  resources of the environment into food, clothing,
  and shelter
• They develop in response to
• seasonal variation in the environment.
• environmental variations such as drought, flood,
  or animal diseases.

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Subsistence Strategies

• Factors
• Population density the number of people
  inhabiting an area of land
• Productivity the yield per person per unit of
  land

• Efficiency the yield per person per hour of
  labor invested

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Major Subsistence Strategies

• Foraging
• Pastoralism
• Horticulture
• Agriculture
• Industrialism

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Subsistence Strategies

• Until about 10,000 years ago, humans lived by
  foraging.
• As tools improved, foragers spread out and
  developed diverse cultures, arriving in the
  Americas and Australia about 25,000 years ago.

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Subsistence Strategies

• About 10,000 years ago, human groups in the Old
  World, and 4,000 years later in the New World,
  began to domesticate plants and animals.
• The domestication of plants and animals supported
  increased populations and sedentary village life
  became widespread.

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Subsistence Strategies

• The Industrial Revolution involved the
  replacement of human and animal energy by
  machines.
• In a typical nonindustrial society, more than 80
  of the population is involved in food production
• In a highly industrialized society, 10 of the
  people produce food for the other 90.

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Subsistence Strategy

• Each subsistence strategy
• supports a characteristic level of population
  density.
• has a different level of productivity.
• has a different level of efficiency.

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Foraging

• Relies on food naturally available in the
  environment
• Strategy for 99 of the time humans have been on
  earth
• Limits population growth and complexity of social
  organization

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Pastoralism

• Caring for domesticated animals which produce
  meat and milk
• Involves a complex interaction among animals,
  land, and people
• How can you get all the protein and nutrients
  from raising animals?
• Found along with cultivation or trading relations
  with food cultivators

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Horticultural

• Horticulture is the growing of crops of all kinds
  with relatively simple tools and methods.
• Typically a tropical forest adaptation that
  requires cutting and burning the jungle to clear
  fields

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Agriculture

• Production of plants using plows, animals, and
  soil and water control
• Associated with
• Sedentary villages
• Occupational diversity
• Social stratification

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Transitions to Industrial Economy

• Affected many aspects of society
• Population growth
• Expanded consumption of resources
• International expansion
• Occupational specialization
• Shift from subsistence strategies to wage labor

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Globalization

• Industrialism today has outgrown national
  boundaries.
• The result has been great movement of resources,
  capital, and population, as the whole world has
  gradually been drawn into the global economy.

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Bringing it Back Home Globalization and Food
Choice

• In the past most of the food choices on our
  tables were locally grown.
• Today, some 80 of the fruit consumed in the U.S.
  is produced in only two states Washington and
  California.
• In the fiscal year 2007, the U.S. imported 70
  billion dollars worth of food.

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Bringing it Back Home Globalization and Food
Choice

• Fruits and vegetables are available year-round
  from places as far away as India.
• This global food network exerts a high price and
  a high carbon footprint.
• The average tomato produces three times as much
  carbon dioxide than a locally-grown one.

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Market Foragers?
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Bringing it Back Home Globalization and Food
Choice

• You decide
• What cultural, social, personal, and other
  obstacles do you see as standing in the way of or
  opening possibilities for changes in Americas
  food habits?
• What are some of the changes in American culture
  and society that might result from changes in
  Americas food practices?