Complex sentence: People had to contend with periodic episodes of hunger and famine; producing enough food required hard and well-timed labor, and the climatic conditions resulted in unpredictable harvests and the need to store as much food as possible.
Split into simpler sentences: People had to contend with periodic episodes of hunger and famine. Producing enough food required hard and well-timed labor and the climatic conditions resulted in unpredictable harvests and the need to store as much food as possible.