Why is farming needed?

Question

Why is farming needed?

Answer 1

What a good question.  We don't really need farming. After all we could just buy all of our food from the supermarket and all of our clothes from the mall. I wonder why somebody didn't think of this before.  Just look at all of the land and work wasted growing all of those crops and animals.

   Edit: Thanks Buck, it is really scary that someone could have thought this was a serious answer to such a question.  I was assuming that the question was sarcastic as well. At least hoping that nobody could really be that ignorant. But these days I guess you should not take anything for granted.

Answer 2

Uh, open your fridge or pantry. Everything we eat is either farmed or made from something farmed.

Answer 3

Well would you like to live? Eat? Sleep on a bed? Drive a car? Then if you said yes; you now know why farming is important.

It is also huge for the nations economy! (Imports and Exports)

John h-- where do you wnt to get all the food and clothing from? what are you going to do when we don;t have any food or cotton to make clothing? If you could do it without farming oir ranching that is amazing!

Answer 4

DON'T BE DUMB...FROM BASKETBALLS TO MEAT TO SOAP TO MILK, THE LIST GOES ON OF WHAT FARMING IS USED FOR!!!!!!!!!!

Answer 5

What man? How do you live otherwise?!

Answer 6

You want to eat don't you? Where do those massive amounts of fruits and veggies come from if not farming. I don't think that many are grown wild.

Answer 7

you might as well ask why do we need to eat?     that was a really stupid question.  Most people could not, or do not know how to feed themselves.  I have farmed or been involved in agriculture all my life.  without us, the world would starve.  And I know that John is being sarcastic....

Answer 8

Agriculture is the production of food, feed, fiber and other goods by the systematic growing/harvesting of plants, animals and other life forms. "Agriculture" is also short for the study of the practice of agriculture – more formally known as agricultural science.

Agriculture encompasses many subjects, including aquaculture, cultivation, animal husbandry, and horticulture. Each of these subjects can be further partitioned: for example, cultivation includes both organic farming and intensive farming, and animal husbandry includes ranching, herding, and intensive pig farming. Agricultural products include fodder, (starch, sugar, alcohols and resins), fibers (cotton, wool, hemp, silk and flax), fuels (methane from biomass, ethanol, biodiesel), cut flowers, ornamental and nursery plants, tropical fish and birds for the pet trade, and both legal and illegal drugs (biopharmaceuticals, tobacco, marijuana, opium, cocaine).

The history of agriculture is a central element of human history, as agricultural progress has been a crucial factor in worldwide socio-economic change. Wealth-building and militaristic specializations rarely seen in hunter-gatherer cultures are commonplace in agricultural and agro-industrial societies—when farmers became capable of producing food beyond the needs of their own families, others in the tribe/village/City-state/nation/empire were freed to devote themselves to projects other than food acquisition.

As of 2006, an estimated 36 percent of the world's workers are employed in agriculture[1] (down from 42% in 1996), making it by far the most common occupation. However, the relative significance of farming has dropped steadily since the beginning of industrialization, and in 2006 – for the first time in history – the services sector overtook agriculture as the economic sector employing the most people worldwide. Also, agricultural production accounts for less than five percent of the gross world product (an aggregate of all gross domestic products).[2]

Answer 9

Vic brings up a good point about the possibility of removing all of the subsidies... and from the view of many consumers and businessman alike, why should the farmers be supported.  In the US anyway, what a large number of people do not realize is that the "farm subsidy" program supports far more than the farmers.  A fair part of the money doled out goes to the WIC program for families living under the poverty level and used as we call it "food stamps".     Farmers in the US as well as in Europe are considered price takers, not price makers.  This is simple economic terms where the farmer is at mercy of the market to pay the money that the farm receives for income.  Farm subsidies need a reorganization of how it is spent, but to do away with the program altogether will cause an unprecedented upheaval in the ag economy.

Answer 10

People started farming so they would have dependable supplies of food.

If you could as a more specific question we could give a more specific answer.

Answer 11

Depends where your talking about.

I dont think that the UK needs a farming industry, well probally needs one but they aint any good at it otherwise they wouldnt need to be subsidised.

All farms should be just like any other business and that means either be good at it and make a profit on your own two feet or go broke.

The goverment should be putting the taxs into something that provides a profit instead of keeping the green wellington brigade in the comfort they are accustomed too at the working mans expense.

Subsides products mean higher prices to the consumer.

Answer 12

To sustain the population and maintian or countryside.

Answer 13

Cause our parents got us kicked out of the magic garden.  Now we either have to hunt it or plant it. When there were many fewer people, the earth could support us that way but since we are so many now, we have to farm foods to have enough.

Answer 14

To grow the stuff we eat, an also to grow the stuff that livestock eat, and to grow the livestock itself. If everyone had enough land and energy to grow a very large garden plus chickens and rabbits for meat, we wouldn't need farmers. But--it'll never happen in the US!