GGS - Chapter 6

An important clarification that Diamond makes here is that the apparent advantages of food production over hunting-gathering isn't what it seems. Sedentary doesn't mean easy, as food production can mean even harsher working conditions and malnutrition.

So why transition in the first place? For starters, it is important to realize the food production evolved. Gradual acquisition of domestication and sedentary life took place, often separately. Many aspects of food production, such as care for the land, was already going on in hunter-gatherers. Another important consideration is the adoption of both alternative strategies at the same time to increase gains (parallels to game theory in animal behavior).

In the end, there are five main reasons to switch:

• Availability of wild food: extinction of animals could lead to increased pressures to produce
• Climate change led to the expansion of cereals
• Development of storage/harvesting technologies
• Link between density and food production: more people creates pressure to increase production
• Interesting parallel to Blackmore's idea that the farming meme is inherited vertically through generations, and that the sedentary lifestyle led to more children that inherited that meme = overall spread of the farming meme
  
• Bordering farmers could overtake neighboring hunter-gatherers or the hunter-gatherers adopted their techniques

In is therefore easy to see that food production started in the Fertile Crest in 8500 BC and not earlier because some of these factors would have not be present previously.