Agriculture, Preindustrial

Throughout much of the world's history (indeed, dating back to the Neolithic Revolution 8,000 to 10,000 yrs. [years] ago), societies fed themselves through an assortment of preindustrial agricultural systems. Preindustrial or nonindustrial agricultural systems differ from industrialized ones in a variety of respects. Most important, preindustrial systems do not use the inanimate sources of energy that are vital to industrialized agricultural systems (e.g., fossil fuels) and, therefore, are markedly less energy intensive in nature. Rather, work in preindustrial farming systems is accomplished entirely through human or animal labor power. Thus, these types of farming are much more labor intensive. In societies fed predominantly through preindustrial agriculture, the vast bulk of people are engaged as farmers or peasants. Second, because preindustrial societies are often not fully ...