Agriculture has come a long way from its ancient beginnings. Long ago, farmers would work hard on their individual plots of land, using simple tools or even their bare hands. They tended to their crops for many hours each day so that the crops grew well and did not suffer from pests or disease. Luck played a great part in farming. For example, a single storm could destroy a whole year’s work, while a summer of good weather could ensure a good harvest. Where farms were located was often critical to success, too. In hilly countries, some lucky farmers would have land in the lowlands—full of deep, rich soil, while other unlucky farmers would have land on the hills with hard soil full of stones. In addition, some areas would simply be too dry or too wet to grow much of value.
Modern science and technology have helped to greatly reduce the back-breaking labour involved in farming, along with the reliance on luck and guesswork. These advances have enabled people in various countries to benefit from exceptional innovations in crop production.
Probably one of the most beneficial innovations is drip irrigation, which has made it possible to develop big, green farms in the middle of the desert. While there have been experiments in different places in the past to make drip irrigation a reality, it is in the Middle Eastern country of Israel that drip irrigation has become a modern success.
How Simcha Blass, a scientist, discovered this new way of irrigation is rather interesting. He was visiting a friend in the Israeli desert in the 1930s when he noticed something unusual. There was a row of trees near his friend’s house, and one of them was much taller than the others. When Blass dug around the roots to find out what the secret was, he discovered that the house’s water pipe had a small leak at the base of the tree. The pipe’s steady drip onto the tree’s roots was giving it just enough water at the perfect rate to grow strong and quickly.
Through this discovery, farmers can now produce crops on arid land without needing much water. This irrigation method uses far less water than other methods. The limited and focused use of just the right amount of water also denies moisture to weeds and pests, keeping them from harming the crops.
Drip irrigation deals with a lack of water in an area. However, what if an area has plenty of water, but little usable soil? As it turns out, it is possible to grow plants without using soil at all. With hydroponics, plant roots are supported by rocks, glass beads, or a fibre mat. Nutrient-rich water is then provided so that the plants can grow. Given that China has many areas where soil conditions are poor, Chinese researchers have been experimenting with hydroponics since the 1970s. Recent research has centred on vertical hydroponics farming. With a vertical farm, the crops are planted in trays that are stacked into plant skyscrapers. Furthermore, nearly all hydroponic farms and vertical farms are either partially or fully automated.
Besides drip irrigation and hydroponics, scientists have made impressive innovations in agricultural machinery. Of course, the most important and useful agricultural machines, such as tractors and harvesters, were invented long ago. However, many such machines are now self-driving. They use cameras and a positioning system to see where they are and where they are going, and their routes can be planned by a computer. Depending upon the crop, some farms hundreds or thousands of hectares in size can be managed by just a handful of workers using machines such as these. For fruit cultivation, robots are now being employed in some countries. For instance, in Japan, robots are used to spray individual grape clusters with insecticide, trim them so they are all of equal size, bag them so that they can be further protected from pests and the elements, and then harvest them when they are ripe. In other countries, robots are being used to harvest oranges and strawberries, plant rice, and spray pesticides. The field of agricultural robotics is still in its infancy, so there is still a need for human labour to harvest many crops. To help ease this burden, there are also robots that can help workers carry fruit and vegetables to storage areas.
With such technological advances, the image of a farmer pushing a plough will eventually become a thing of the past. Farmers of the future are more likely to be technicians working in control rooms, surrounded by computers and monitors. Indeed, some farmers already are.