Sustainable primary production

Abstract

t is difficult to imagine a world today without agriculture and livestock. However, until the last glaciation (≈11.000 years ago), human social groups were made up of hunter-gatherers who lived from hunting, fruit gathering and fishing and were distinguished by their capacity for mobility. About 10,000 years ago, a turning point in human history took place. Progressively these groups became sedentary with the creation of the first settlements, coinciding with the development of the first domesticated species of plants and animals that allowed them to be producers of their own food. In the following millennia the progressive development of agriculture, livestock and fishing took place in different parts of the world allowing the increase of the world population in parallel. From the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, industrialization and the development of chemical fertilizers and pesticides gave an important impulse to the increase of agricultural and livestock production in the world, allowing the population to multiply by seven in the last 200 years. Never in the history of mankind have we had access to such amount of high quality food. However, we cannot ignore the high environmental costs of development, known in numerous impacts, from thedecrease of biodiversity in large areas, the eutrophication of aquatic ecosystems due to the excessive input of nutrients in hydrological and sedimentary flows, to the proliferation of the use of food packaging systems, as well as production and distribution chains, with a high environmental footprint.