Family Farm Friday #31: Agriculture Around the World

"Let us never forget that the cultivation of the earth is the most important labor of man. When tillage begins, other arts follow. The farmers, therefore, are the founders of civilization." ~Daniel Webster

I've sort of had a bombardment this week of agriculture around the world in my email inbox. I figured this was a sign I needed a blog on the issue.

First, there was two great post on my friend Crystal's blog about cattle feedlots in Australia. Check them out here and here. They do things pretty differently with regard to feed (very little corn and much more wheat or barley) when compared to America. Why you might wonder? They don't grow corn in Australia. That means that to feed it, they have to import it in, which makes it much more expensive. I think that Americans take for granted our domestic agriculture industry sometimes.....remember to think of a corn farmer the next time you bite into a juicy steak!

Also, one of the most interesting things that she talked about (at least to me) was how they feed the cattle differently depending on what country they are marketing the beef too. So, for example, cattle staying in Australia are much leaner than beef that will go to Japan because the Australian consumer likes a leaner product. Such an interesting concept, and one that I am sort of embarassed to admit that I had never considered before. (BTW...that lucky duck Crystal has been touring the country for the last month...jealous!)

Then, my Teacher Friend sent me an email with an awesome story from Japan. Urban agriculture is a pretty popular concept all over the world, but I had read before that Japan was leading the way. They have several rooftop fields that grow crops right in the middle of the city. Well, the video that Teacher Friend sent did it one better--one office building planted a rice paddy.....on the first floor. Check out the video. After working at their desk, the workers would head down to farm the paddy in their suits. Now, as I've said before, I'm a farm girl at heart and sometimes I just have to get out of the city and back to God's country. But I never thought about doing that by harvesting a field on the first floor of my building!

Lastly, while hunting pictures for this blog, I came across a wonderful website of pictures from farming around the globe. It's called An Ode to Farming. Trust me...it's worth taking a look at!

It's great to be able to look at how other countries do things and to appreciate the fact that through agriculture, we are connected to people across the world!

(Photos courtesy of cdycattle.blogspot.com and foreignpolicy.com)