amongst the barley/wheat/corn/rice/sorghum cultures yes that's actually quite an old theory. There are some researchers who believethe jump from Teosinte to early Corn derives mostly from old selections of sugary stems providing enough energy to form large seeds.I once came across an amusing theory that pointed out agriculture got going at around the same time beer was discovered and postulated a link between the two, namely that once early humans discovered the delights of getting smashed they needed a regular grain surplus in order to do so as often as possible, hence cultivation. I don't know how much substance to it there is, but given humanity's long and intimate association with alcohol based beverages...
It runs along the same line as prestige foods of foraged and tended stands creating demand to produce them on a conscious level more intensely involving monocrops.
Well not exactly ASB but you want be making Worldwide Mongol Nations. Swineherds, aviculturalist, aquaculturists, and especially apiculture etc... Could fill up a number of niches. Kreb-harvesting, demarcation and temporal settlement would still develop though.So there are some ways you can make it so Humans don't adopt agriculture; either the land humans inhabit is so rediculously rich with food to eat that its easiest just to gather or hunt than to grow(Which is unlikely as our diet overlaps with that of many other species) or humans are limited to a place that cant sustain agriculture, so enviroments where hunter-gatherers still live today(Tundra, Taiga, Desert and so on). Alternatively, you could have a Pastoral Nomadic wank timeline, where humans domesticate and herd species around most if not all biomes; could lead to some interesting domestication situations as Humans look for animals to herd say, in the Jungle. But most of these would require things that are ASB.
Sahel is independent, Ethiopia's south was vegeculturalist and distinct from the poaceae centered systems of the Sahel. Looking at notions of prestige foods, its telling that Teff and Fonio are considered the greatest of foods in their respective homeranges to consume showing great antiquity. Also it helps reaffirm the pastoralist basis of Savanna cultural complexes given the very high protein content and digestibility content of the harvested straw useful for the cattle centered societies at that time.As DValdron and others have pointed out, agriculture was independently invented multiple times across much of the world soon after we entered the latest interglacial. Presumably it was the (relative) stability of the climate since then which permitted it to flourish. There is also evidence that proto-domestication of plants happened in various places in or near the Middle East during the glacial era, but was abandoned due to changing climates.
In terms of independent inventions of agriculture, we have at least Fertile Crescent (once, possibly simultaneously at different ends), China (once possibly twice in North and South China), Mesoamerica, Andes (once, possibly twice), eastern North America, and New Guinea. We can also include probably but not definitely Ethiopia and the Sahel as different areas. Tibet is also a possibility, as is India, and also possibly in Amazonia. That's a minimum of 6, quite possibly as many as 14 times.
So yes, it's looking pretty inevitable that people would develop agriculture, without the kind of geological/climatological one which would more or less end the world as we know it. (Basically, continued glacial period is the most likely option.)
A good pdf exploring production systems is Cattle Before Crops.
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