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Farming today compared to the old way, My life my struggles,
Hub Pages, DIY brickwork. and this article at this link, Farming today compared to the old way.
Wheat farming the modern way.
Farming today compared to the old way
Welcome to our article,
Dear readers, I need to explain that this original article has been posted in Hub Pages, but because it was too long, I have spilt it in two parts, and this is part one. I also need to point out that things are changing these days, so, what I am saying here can be different. I need to tell you that this article was written the first time in 2012.
Anyhow, I
want to talk about farming today compared to the old ways, because I can
mentally see the great difference that it has made in our standard of living.
So, I believe that today we are better off than we were before; but let me see
how I can describe this difference. Anyhow, I am writing about my life story, so,
I mentally compare the ways of life of today to the ways of life in the past
when I was young; for this reason, I have become aware that there is a great
difference; in fact, the difference is so great that it is worth writing an
entire article to explain my personal point of view.
Anyhow, we must
acknowledge that this modern wheat farming in Australia, and in other parts of
the world, it has slashed the present cost of living a lot, and this helps us
to live a better life. We believe that this has happened because of the new
farming machines available to the farmers, and the fertilises available to
them; so, farmers are able to produce wheat and other produce a lot cheaper
than in the past, so, food has become cheaper, therefore, we are better off
today in many ways.
In this article, we
invite our readers to compare how different farming and farming life was at the
time when I was young in the fifties, and, how hard was life then because most
of us had to work hard just to earn enough to feed ourselves and our families.
This difference
that we are talking about applies to the farmers and the public as well,
because today it affects both in a beneficial way. So, there is a lot to be
said about this great difference in cost and hardship or easiness, and this has
happened during my lifetime.
So, I believe that our standard of living has improved a lot, at least in the
sense of being able to feed ourselves with wheat and other farm products,
because the cost of farm products are more affordable today than in the past;
so, let us compare the cost of living, perhaps for the sake of seeing where we
have come from and how much we have improved since then.
Today we often
wonder how easy it is to grow and harvest wheat, at least it seems so when we
look at a video that shows harvest time in the wheat farms, we see a few
harvester machines in a field collect the wheat in no time at all, and because
of this speed of these wonderful combine harvester machine food is a lot
cheaper today than it used to be; of course these machines are only part of the
machinery that helps the farmers produce the wheat, because there are many more
machines required. So, let us talk about some other machinery that the farmers
require.
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Some farmers' machinery.
Now let us talk
about the farmer’s machinery and the benefit that has come from them; of course,
this is due to the industrial revolution that has started a long time ago, and
last century has reached the farming communities improving it a lot. It seems
to me that the farming sector has been one of the last communities that has
benefited from the industrial revolution, anyhow, that doesn’t matter how it
has worked out, because today we are better off, so, let us talk about these
machines. (To see some machines click on this link,
We can say that the
most important machine in the farms is the tractor, as this machine can be used
in all sorts of farming, in wheat farming the tractor is followed by the
harvester machine and other devices to till the soil and to sow the seeds, and
all these machines put together make farming a lot easier today, therefore,
wheat can be produced a lot cheaper, this of course helps keep the price of
bread and other wheat made products down, since wheat is the main food elements
required in the western world to prepare food, therefore, this new way of
farming helps a great deal just about everybody, since wheat is one of the main
ingredients to make foods for us to eat, and we require lots of it.
Of course, if we
want to talk about farming there is more to say than just wheat farming,
because there are many other things that the bloke on the land can produce, see
this link here-under how Wikipedia explains farming.
Agriculture - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dear readers, now
that we have talked about these farmer’s machines, let us talk about wheat
farming and the great benefit that we get from it; we must be happy about what
is happening because it is a good thing for all of us; so, we want to point out
that there is a great difference in the ways of living, and we are a lot better
off today than we were when I was young, so, let us compare some of the
benefits that we have achieved, since today the farmers can use these farm
machines that the industrial revolution has made for us.
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Let us compare these benefits.
Now, let us compare
the great difference between today and the past. Now this comparison was true the day I wrote it the first time, anyhow, in Australia there are a few places that a 600g loaf of bread costs you
just one dollar, we know that this bread is sold at a very special price from
these supermarket, in order to get the customers to the shop, but we wonder and
we do not know how it can be done so cheap but they do it anyhow, this very low
price of bread is possible only because the farmer can produce the wheat cheap
for a start.
Then, because the
wheat is cheap the price of bread can be cheap, the supermarkets make it even
cheaper to attract customers, because the supermarkets have a price war to
attract customers on bread and also on milk, so, we can buy a loaf of bread for
one dollar and we can buy a two litre bottled milk for two dollars, that works
out at one dollar per litre, again how they can do it I do not know, but they
do it anyhow; so, there is plenty of cheap wholesome food around for us to
enjoy, thanks to the farmers and the supermarkets. (We hope that this will last
for a long time, but I have my doubts). Anyhow, I must point out that in the
past, the price of bread and milk was a lot dear, in fact there have been
times, when people were struggling to feed themselves, as we will explain
before we finish writing this article.
But even though
bread and milk is cheap beyond compare, there are people that still complain
about the cost of living today, I know that what I am talking about here are
only a few items and a lot more are needed to live well. But for comparison’s
sake let us show you how easily we can afford to buy bread and milk today, you
see today, while I am writing this article for the first time, most people on
the government old age pension in Australia receive about 700 dollars per
fortnight, which would be about 50 dollars per day, they can easily afford to
buy bread and milk and other food items.
Now that we have
said how easy it is to buy bread and other staple food today, let us see how
things were done in the past. You see, when I was young things were a lot
harder than today, for sure we could not buy bread and milk as easy as we buy
them today, because to produce these things took a lot more physical work than
today, therefore, they were a lot more expensive, they were so because the way
of producing them was different, in order to show you what we mean, we are
going to describe how wheat farming was done at the time when I was young, and
how hard it was for some people just to have something to eat, even if it was
just a piece of bread and butter, bread and milk, or bread and tomatoes or
other basic things that one could find in the fields if you were in the farms.
Anyhow, let me describe how farming was done then, in this following
sub-article, farming the old ways, so, we can have a better understanding of
the whole issue, and be able to compare the past with the present way of
farming.
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Farming the old way.
Dear readers, to
compare and explain how farming was done at the time when I was young, we are
going to write here the way of farm life that was going on in those times; we
know already that things have changed for the better since then, as we have
written above, because of the tractor and new farming machinery that have come
out since then, all due to the industrial revolution or progress; which we have
experienced in the last hundred years or so, but when I was young there were a
lot less advanced farming machine that could make farming easy, of course, the
tractors were already there, but they were very expensive to buy for most of
the small farmers, so, we had to do most things the old ways. Now let me tell
you how life was in the farms of southern Italy in the early fifties and
earlier.
It is a well-known
fact that in those times and even now, there are two times during the year,
when in the farms everybody is working hard and working very long hours; one of
this was sowing time and the other is harvest time, let us start with sowing
times. When I was young the working day at sowing time would start two hours
before dawn, because we had to make the horses, mules and other animals ready
for working in the fields, we had to feed them and water them as well, it had
to be done in such a way that everything should be made ready to go into the
fields at daybreak.
At that time of the
year in the morning it was very cold and there are lots of frosty days, so, in
the morning the outside temperature could be around zero or below, it is very
hard then to harness the horses to the plough as everything one touches is so
cold; but then when one gets going it is not so bad, because walking in the
fields holding the plough in one hand and guiding the horses with the other
hand is hard work and it makes one warm. This type of very hard work at sowing
time goes on for about a month if the weather is good and perhaps it could be
longer than a month. When the sowing is done then everything slows down again,
but we had still to look after the farms’ animals and do other farming chores;
see this article My farm life continues, where we describe what we did after
sowing, and what we did during the winter time.
Now let us talk
about harvest time, since this is the busiest time in the farms, because
harvest time is when the farmers collect the fruits of their hard labour, so,
there is no time to be wasted at harvest time, therefore, this was and is the
most hectic time of the year for all the farmers, and it is a very worrying
time too for the farmers, you see if something goes wrong all their work goes
down the drain for the whole year, so to speak. Here we are talking about mostly
how things were run in the farms when I was young.
Now let us say a
few things about today farming, especially about wheat farming, because wheat
is one of the most important produces that we need from farming, as we have
already said at the beginning of this article. With wheat we make bread and
pasta and other bakery products, therefore, it is the most important farm
produce that we use. So, let us compare what is changed in wheat farming since
I was young:
Now this blog is becoming too long, so, we will continue this article in part two, where we describe, how wheat harvest was done in the fifties. See you then.
To see more click on this link, Farming today compared to the old way
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