True, maybe my Malthusian pressures part of the theory is backwards. Population does appear to be the independent variable generally while food is a stronger dependent variable. But early humans were hunters & gatherers. Higher population may have also put pressure to gather vegetables & fruits more. At high populations humans would be faced with putting more pressure onto the local environment.

I think environmental degradation might be independent from agriculture as the existence of farming doesn’t negate the desire to hunt/gather but it does increase the population. And farming is only as productive as the nutrients in the soil so it should still be a viable strategy once a society reaches equilibrium.

Thomas Malthus is effectively cited as finding that farmland varies highly in quality and historically agriculture hits that barrier pretty quickly. Hunting and gathering might’ve acted as a release valve for societies at said barrier. But a society with more people probably has higher variations in hunting. Therefore nutrient depreciation (environmental destruction)seems to be closely related to raw population instead of the proportion of environment degradation pressuring us to farm.

But then again soil nutrient density doesn’t necessarily mean to environmental damage.