[27-Food 视频] 走向现代化的农耕文明 | Growing crops

People have always relied on nature to provide food. But it’s the way we source that food that's evolved over time. One of the biggest changes in human history happened thousands of years ago – transforming the way we live and the way we eat: The introduction of farming.

The first humans were hunter-gatherers – people who lived by hunting animals or gathering wild food to eat. They were nomads, always on the move to where there was food. But around ten thousand years ago, people began to plant crops and grow fruit trees. They began to raise animals, giving them eggs, meat and milk, and started to cut down trees to create clearings and build permanent homes.

For thousands of years, many people farmed the land to grow enough food for their families to eat – and perhaps to sell some at a local market. This is called subsistence farming.

But gradually, more and more people began to leave the countryside to live in towns and cities, relying on food farmed by others - and traded.

Since transport systems like roads and, later, railways were getting better, it was becoming more possible to grow crops outside a city and bring them to market while they were still fresh.

In the 20th century, farmers began using faster and better machinery to plant and harvest crops. Fields were made even bigger so the machines could work efficiently - and more wildlife habitats were cleared to make way for food production. New fertilisers and chemicals were invented to improve the quantity and quality of the crops and protect them from disease. The focus of these new, intensive farming methods was on our most important staple crops – like wheat.

Wheat is now farmed on a large scale. The grain produced by wheat is ground into flour and used to make food such as bread, couscous and pasta, some of the most important staple foodstuffs for many people in the world. 

Recent technology has improved the way we harvest crops that were traditionally picked and separated by hand. But despite the growth of intensive farms, some farms still need a large number of people to work on the land, relying on manual labour rather than machines, to do much of the work.

Rice farming is one of the most labour intensive of all. Rice grows best in paddy fields in warm countries like India and China. Farmers flood the land with water to make sure the rice grows as well as possible. The rice is then harvested, and often threshed by hand. Rice is important. It is the staple food for over half the world’s population. 

There is no doubt that modern farming methods have transformed the nature of food production around the world: better machines for planting, sorting and harvesting crops; new ways of developing varieties of fruit and vegetables to resist disease and to grow bigger and more quickly.

The combination of new machinery, and the labour of workers on big and small farms around the world means we can now produce all the food we need.