FURTHER READING

Start exploring by searching for new ways we can do agriculture. 

You can also search for more information about the method of crop rotation.  

Follow this portal to see statistics about land use from the website Our World in Data.  https://ourworldindata.org/land-use

You may want to learn more about which animals and insects are pollinators. Not only bees pollinate our flowers, trees, and plants. Some other insects and birds are also good at this job. 

Finally, you may get surprised by the fact of how many different species can call a single tree home. Search - How many different species can live in one tree?

MORE

How honey is made?

Why there are so many insects?

How trees communicate?

Why leaves change their color in Autumn?

Biology

Biology

Chemistry

Biology

Conventional farms occupy large parts of the land.

Wheat is massively produced today but is an annual crop. This means every year has to be replanted.

Annual crops cannot keep the soil on place and a lot of it is lost during storms or in the winter.

Bees are the best pollinators.

Cats are pest controllers and good pets.

Owls are useful pest controllers. They eat insects, earthworms, snails, spiders, and crabs.

Some birds are pollinators.

Flowers attract pollinators like bees and birds.

Trees are potential homes of pollinators and pest controllers like bees and birds.

NEXT

LIVE FAST DIE YOUNG

Learn why most of the crops people grow are annual. They live for only one year. Grow fast but die young.

A lot of scientists are also working on perennial forms of crops like wheat and rice. Perennials can live for many years instead of just one.

The idea is to grow farms with perennial forms of crops among a variety of other long-lived plants and create a self-supporting ecosystem. These ecosystems can hold water and soil in place and can attract pollinators and pest controllers for smaller use of fertilizers.

Suppose we succeed in creating farms that comprise of perennial crops, bushes, and trees that can sustain themselves. In that case, we could revolutionize the way we farm and give humanity the model to feed itself for the next 10 000 years.

Not going back to our roots as hunters and gatherers but not also continuing with conventional agriculture.

From then all people started planting crops, domesticating animals, and breeding better crops with time. It was more efficient and much easier than hunting and gathering. It was a progress of its own, but the big game started after the Industrial revolution. We began to produce larger quantities than before, but we also started to use more resources and energy.

And with time as the scale increased, we could easily see that this model was not working. Now we are facing bigger and more severe problems than ever before.

The largest underground aquifers are losing water faster than they get it refilled due to the massive water usage for agriculture. Of all the water people use, 70% goes for agriculture. We don’t drink it, nor shower with it, nor use it in production, just farm.

Our supplies of phosphorous are being mined at such fast rates we will completely use them up in the next few hundred years.

And this overfertilizing is polluting the waters we drink and the food we eat.

The way we do agriculture hasn’t changed much in the past 10 000 years. We are producing way more than we used to, but the methods are the same. Plough the land, plant crops, water, fertilize, and harvest. Then repeat every year.

In the future, we could implement technology to use resources more efficiently, but it is unlikely that so small changes will make the difference.

Instead of depleting resources, we could recycle them. Even if it sounds revolutionary, it is not something new. There is already a system functioning this way. In nature, the only energy input comes from the sun’s light. And the ecosystems comprised of many plants, animals and insects cycle the nutrients and water and use the resources in a way they are not lost but instead reused.

We are already trying to incorporate some of these methods in agriculture. We are interspacing crops with trees to attract pollinators, pest controllers, and also keep the soil in place.

How are we doing agriculture wrong?

It was around 10 000 years ago when the first humans began to plant crops for food production. They have no idea what will come out at the end, but it turns to be one of the most significant advancements humanity ever made.