📘 Part 3: Growing plants

This episode's vocabulary

Green Revolution (noun) - the big increase in the production of crops during the 1960s and 1970s because of the use of modern methods.

Advent (noun) - the fact of an event happening, an invention being made, or a person arriving.

Plot (noun) - a small piece of land that has been marked or measured for a particular purpose.

To speculate (verb) - to guess possible answers to a question when you do not have enough information to be certain.

To nourish (verb) - to provide people or living things with food in order to make them grow and keep them healthy.

Fertilizer (noun) - a natural or chemical substance that is spread on the land or given to plants, to make plants grow well.

Paraphernalia (noun) - all the objects needed for or connected with a particular activity.

Allotment (noun) - a small piece of ground in or just outside a town that a person rents for growing vegetables, fruits, or flowers.

To democratize (verb) - to make countries or organizations use democratic ways of making decisions.

Procedure (noun) - a set of actions that is the official or accepted way of doing something.

Gist (noun) - the most important pieces of information about something, or general information without details.

Rural (adj.) - in, of, or like the countryside.

Labour (noun) - practical work, especially when it involves hard physical effort.

Oversight (noun) - systems or actions to control an activity and make sure that it is done correctly and legally.

Population basis (noun) - the number of people living in an area.

Mass (adj.) - having an effect on or involving a large number of people or forming a large amount.

Malnourished (adj.) - weak and in bad health because of having too little food or too little of the types of food necessary for good health.

Governance (noun) - the way that organizations or countries are managed at the highest level, and the systems for doing this.

To curb (verb) - to control or limit something that is not wanted.

To leap (verb) - to make a large jump or sudden movement, usually from one place to another.

Crop (noun) - the total amount collected of) a plant such as a grain, fruit, or vegetable grown in large amounts.

Yield (noun) - an amount of something positive, such as food or profit, that is produced or supplied.

Genetic modification(noun) - the process of changing the structure of the genes of a living thing in order to make it healthier, stronger, or more useful to humans.

Hardy (adj.) - hardy plants can live through the winter without protection from the weather.

Livestock (noun) - animals and birds that are kept on a farm, such as cows, sheep, or chickens.

Disempowered (adj.) - having no control over your life and no power to change things.

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Questions and Answers

M: Are there many people growing their own vegetables now?

R: Well, the population has increased. So it would be easy to say so. However, I think the proportion of people doing so is probably lower than ever due to the Green Revolution and the advent of all the massive agricultural developments we've had. People also have less time to maintain plots of land, now that I think about it.

M: How do people feel when they eat the vegetables they grow themselves?

R: Having never done it, I wouldn't know for certain, but I would speculate they feel a sense of accomplishment for having done it themselves. Though they might not feel as nourished as they likely don't have the access to the fertilizers or the other paraphernalia you need to produce food that's maximally beneficial.

M: Do people like to grow vegetables in your country?

R: I couldn't even begin to say with any certainty. However, given the current economic climate with increasing inflation and a lack of resources and time, people might like it, though, they're unlikely to have the chance to do it at the moment.

M: Why not at the moment?

R: Well, because they don't have access to the things they need in order to be able to do that. Maintaining vegetable allotments, or any kind of garden takes a lot of time and resources and people need money now.

M: Do you think it's good to let children learn how to plant?

R: We should definitely have an understanding of where our food comes from and the processes that allow life to be sustained on the planet and how agriculture works as part of that. I suppose it could help democratize information and keep people safe. The shape that education would take will likely vary from country to country since the agricultural processes and procedures will be different, but the gist of it is the same. It would be a good idea for sure.

M: What do people think of the job of a farmer?

R: They don't seem to feature a great deal in non-rural areas and settings. So they're likely to be relatively unthought of, probably. That being said, farmers are a very small part of the population. So it's easy to see why that might be the case.

M: What are the differences between traditional and modern agriculture?

R: That will depend where you draw the line between the two on the timeline, frankly, but let's say it's where technology starts to play a bigger role compared to biological labour. That would mean that there are significant differences in the use of animals, farm hunts, manufactured fertilizers and legal oversight, the list is pretty much endless.

M: Is farming important?

R: If you want to live then yes, I would say so. We couldn't sustain the population bases most countries have without some sort of mass agriculture. People would starve to death, or they'd be malnourished in all kinds of ways and likely die of diseases our modern biology isn't adapted to cope with.

M: Is climate change influencing food production in any way?

R: Well, it's certainly influencing the governance of food production. There are widespread farm protests in the Netherlands over the restrictions being placed on farmers there, due to the government trying to cut down on methane emissions. That in turn will curb food production if farms shut down.

M: How will technological and scientific improvements affect food production?

R: I couldn't say about the future since I don't know the latest developments, though if past leaps in knowledge and technology or anything to go by, we'll likely see an increase in crop yields. Since that's what past improvements have provided. Genetic modification is also likely to allow us to engineer hardier crops and livestock too.

M: And do you think more people will grow their own vegetables in the future?

R: I don't know. If the current trend of people being disempowered and moving to cities continues then no. No, they won't, sorry. I want to end on a positive note. But that's really sad.

M: Yay...

R: Yay, we're losing control of our lives. Fantastic.

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