There was nothing natural or inevitable about the development of

agriculture. Because cultivation of plants requires more labor than hunting

and gathering, we can assume that Stone Age humans gave up their former ways
of life reluctantly and slowly. In fact, peoples such as the Bushmen of
Southwest Africa still follow them today. But between about 8000 and 3500
B.C., increasing numbers of humans shifted to dependence on cultivated crops
and domesticated animals for their subsistence. By about 7000 B.C., their
tools and skills had advanced sufficiently for cultivating peoples to support
towns with over one thousand people, such as Jericho in the valley of the
Jordan River and Catal Huyuk in present-day Turkey. By 3500 B.C., agricultural
peoples in the Middle East could support sufficient numbers of non-cultivating
specialists to give rise to the first civilizations.

During the Sangam age, 200 BCE – 200 CE, agriculture was the main vocation of the Tamils.[1] It
was considered a necessity for life, and hence was treated as the foremost among all
occupations. The farmers or the Ulavar were placed right at the top of the social classification. As
they were the producers of food grains, they lived with self-respect. Agriculture during the early
stages of Sangam period was primitive,[1] but it progressively got more efficient with
improvements in irrigation, ploughing, manuring, storage and distribution. The ancient Tamils
were aware of the different varieties of soil, the kinds of crops that can be grown on them and the
various irrigation schemes suitable for a given region.These were also in madras,thanjore(now
as Chennai,Thanjavur respectively).

The Tamil people practiced a very systematic method of cultivation during the Sangam age. It
was known that ploughing, manuring, weeding, irrigation and crop protection need to be followed
in a proper way for the yield to be rich.[7] Tiruvalluvar, in his Tirukkural, emphasizes the need for
all of these steps to be undertaken in a careful manner in order to get a good yield.

During the early phases of the Sangam period, people depended heavily on rains as the primary
source of water for agriculture. But, increasing demand stemming from a growing population led
to the development of better methods of irrigation. Since the rivers of the region were not
perennial, the primary goal was to procure an adequate and continuous supply of water. Tanks,
lakes and dams were important water storage systems that were developed for this purpose.