School project Help!

[Rushplatts]

HI I'm Charlie Cannon age 12 a farmers son from Hertfordshire. For my school project I'm researching revolutionary events/inventions in farming, particularly the advances in mechanisation over the last 50-100 years.
If any of you could possibly take just a few minutes to answer 4 quick questions below it would be really helpful and would save me getting in trouble from my teachers and parents for not getting my homework done!

1. What is the single biggest machinery invention that has revolutionised farming in your lifetime?

2. How did this invention change the number of people employed within the farming industry?

3. Did the invention make farming more profitable?

4. At first do you think most farmers and farm workers thought it was a positive change/invention?

Thanks for any answers you can give

 

[yellowbelly]

Aye up Charlie,
Got to have it done for Monday morning, I bet


Here's my go...........

1.Stretch wrapping big bale silage.

2. I don't think it affected the number employed, but it made life much easier and the job much quicker.

3. As to increasing profitability, it would have helped but the profitability of farming depends on many other factors (many of which are not able to be controlled by farmers themselves)

4. We all thought it was great - previously all big bale silage had to be bagged (sometimes double bagged ) which was a soul destroying job when you'd got hundreds to do.

Second thoughts on 3..........I suppose it made silage making possible for smaller farms (who previously couldn't afford to invest in clamps foragers, etc) so, I guess, the answer would be 'yes'.

Good luck with the homework - let us know what mark/grade you get

 

[Pan mixer]

HI I'm Charlie Cannon age 12 a farmers son from Hertfordshire. For my school project I'm researching revolutionary events/inventions in farming, particularly the advances in mechanisation over the last 50-100 years.
If any of you could possibly take just a few minutes to answer 4 quick questions below it would be really helpful and would save me getting in trouble from my teachers and parents for not getting my homework done!

1. What is the single biggest machinery invention that has revolutionised farming in your lifetime?

2. How did this invention change the number of people employed within the farming industry?

3. Did the invention make farming more profitable?

4. At first do you think most farmers and farm workers thought it was a positive change/invention?

Thanks for any answers you can give

1 - Mobile phone.
2 - Cut the number of staff by one as I could now work all the time rather than mopping up after others, going to see them to make sure that everything was going efficiently, having to stop what I was doing when there was a breakdown/change of plan etc.
3 - Not really but it did make things easier to manage.
4 - Yes they did and do.

 

[Exfarmer]

My answersmay stretch your 100 years a little if you are being pedantic.
First and foremost the Tractor. Although in reality it may be around 120 years , it was only 90 years ago they started making real progress on the farm.
it enabled farmers to increase their cropped land considerably as they were no longer spending 30% of their time and acreage to grow feed for the horses to do the work.
next the milking machine again marginally over 100 years by a couple. This has enabled one man to milk possibly 300+ cows ( double that in NZ ) on his own compared to 12-15 before this.
thirdly the combine harvester again slightly over the century but it has revolutionised the acreage of crops which one man can reap, meaning vast swathes of corn are in the barn before being touched by rain. Before the combine large areas of grain were regularly lost after cutting but before they reached the barn.
Lastly and most controversially , the direct drill. This tool is changing the way we farm, abandoning 2000 years old techniques of soil inversion, which is good news for invertebrates carbon capture and reducing fuel use.
all these tools reduced employment but at the same time reduced the drudgery of farming in the 20th. C Most of these tools were welcomed by the reducing workforce who found the modern tractor or combine a revelation with working conditions that even their own fathers would have mocked.
Has it made farming more profitable, a very big question? I would suspect in real terms very definitely no. I know my grandfather raised 6 children on 300 acres, giving them a lifestyle which would have been envied by the workers. To get that lifestyle today he would probably need 2000 plus. He would also probably be working a 7 day week driving his own kit too.
good luck with your project!

 

[traineefarmer]

Hi Charlie,

Like you I'm a relative youngster (40 years young ) so I missed out on all the really big jumps forward in mechanisation and being on a relatively small mixed farm many of the current innovations such as GPS based systems are out of my reach financially. You seem to have asked for personal experiences so my answers are:

1) The internet, or maybe Information Technology in general.

2) I don't think it has had a huge impact on employment numbers, but it has made management of certain tasks faster, more efficient and aided things like traceability and assurance schemes.

3) No.

4) I think there will be an age split on this one. My father in his 70s finds it infuriating, but my generation and younger who would have been taught about IT in school definitely see the advantages even if it is just messing about on Facebook, Youtube or TFF on your phone while waiting in your tractor for the next trailer to arrive.