How are farmers able to produce more food in the UK than ever before?

Question

KS3 answer if possible, please.

Answer 1

I'm guessing it's to do with the technology of farm equipment.

In the past, farmers would have a few fields, each with a different crop growing. They'd rotate them, having a 'fallow field' that was left to grow wild (letting the soil regenerate).

Nowadays, farmers tend to choose one crop, they bulldoze all of the hedges/ dividers in between their fields and grow en mass, using large ploughs and harvesters that couldn't turn in smaller fields. Also, they don't lose all the space that was previously taken up by hedges.

Another development is the pesticides/ insecticides. In tradition farming, there would be a certain level of waste/ unusable crop, but with the advent of intensive chemicals, the yield is much higher. This is also due to the lack of hedges (nowhere for animals to live)

Another reason is that farmers are heavily subsidised by the government, and so more people are willing to take on the trade as it is financially viable. If things go wrong (for example, foot and mouth or BSE), then the government bails them out.

With animal production, it's done industrially nowadays. An average milk cow produces about 25 litres of milk a day, but many are milked to produce over 125 litres a day. This intensive farming ups yield, but exhausts the cow. Same with battery farmed chickens- they're bred in very closed quarters, on cheap feed, and the financially un viable ones are killed at an early stage.

So there you go, I think I've exhausted my knowledge of farming.

Answer 2

Try putting this question under the subsection Homework Help in the Education category

Answer 3

global warming made it warmer there so they can grow crops for a longer part of the year