Department of Geography

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Waste Recycling in the Food Chain
(University of Ife Press, 1983-01-18) Omole, T. A.
Man's emergence as a successful and resourceful member of the earth's community is largely due to his ability to manipulate and utilize other members of the community to his own advantage. However varied his other preoccupations may have been, obtaining food for survival was his constant concern. It still is. For thousands of years, man was a wandering food gathering animal. Hunger was often his lot and insecurity and uncertainty were his constant companions. His role in the natural scheme of things was that of a consumer, a confirmed omnivore and often that of a scavenger. Aristotle was correct in asserting that procreation and feeding are the main pre-occupations of all living beings. Like the lower animal, whom in many aspects he resembled, early man collected fruits, mosses and tubers, seized eagerly upon such small animals as snakes and lizards and even ate the insects that crawled beneath his feet. In these early days, man reflected nature; he was indeed a part of nature to a greater extent than at the present time. Yesterday he was full, today empty. In sunshine he was merry, in storm wretched and afraid. Life bore a terrible immediacy for him, with little thought of future and none of the past. In the childhood of human race, the mind of man was fixed on the present.