Early Food Systems Flashcards

Vocabulary flashcards based on lecture notes about early food systems and the transition from hunter-gatherer to agricultural societies.

Cultivation

Soil is improved to grow healthy plants and crops, involving loosening, tilling, and adding water and air to prepare it for planting seeds.

Domestication

The process of adapting wild plants or animals for human use.

Crop

A harvested plant that can be used for food, textiles, paper, decoration, fuel, and to feed livestock.

Agriculture

The practice of farming, which involves cultivation of land for growing crops and feeding, breeding, and raising livestock.

Egalitarian

A belief that all people and resources are equal, and that all people are entitled to the same rights and opportunities as each other.

Fallow

Farming land that has been ploughed and harrowed but left for a period in order to restore its fertility.

Fertile

The soil or land containing enough nutrients that plants and crops require to grow.

Harvesting

Gathering of crops.

Irrigation

Supplying soil and plants with a consistent source of water.

Hunter-gatherer

A person who lives a nomadic life by hunting and gathering food that has been found in the wild.

Foraging

Gathering of wild food to eat.

Terrain

An area of land and the natural features that exist within it.

The Fertile Crescent

Area in the Middle East where it is believed agriculture first commenced, including parts of modern-day Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Jordan.

Livestock

Animals raised for human use.

Neolithic Revolution

A period that saw the beginning of agriculture, when humans transitioned from hunter-gatherer lifestyles to farming and settled villages.

Nomadic

Having to do with a way of life lacking permanent settlement.

Sustainable

Able to be continually used without depletion; something that can be assured for both current and future generations.

Food Security

Exists when all people at all times have physical, social, and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy lifestyle.

Food Sovereignty

The right of people to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems.

Food Citizenship

The practice of encouraging food-related behaviours that support the development of democratic, socially and economically just, and environmentally sustainable food systems.