Creative Writing Contest Vol. 19 | Farming: How has the quality and quantity of the crops grown in your community changed over time?@munyuy-jacob

Greetings to all the steemians of the Agriculture world it is a pleasure for me to be participating in this Creative Writing Contest Vol. 19 | Farming: How has the quality and quantity of the crops grown in your community changed over time?.

Farming has been proven to be one of the oldest cultures in the earth that has traveled from generations to generations until present day. The term Agriculture in another words farming has always and will always be changing as civilization continues to evolve with technology and inventions.

In my community of kumbo In the Bui division Of Cameroon, there is no doubt as to whether the evolution of Agrculture has changed over time or not . Many crops cultivated arround my community like potatoes, maize, beans, vegetables, groundnut, yams, tomatoes, onions, garlics, carrots, cabbages, cassava and rice have changed so much over time in quality and quantity.

How the cultivation of food crops have change in quantity and quality over time in my community

In the late 60s up to the 90s the evolution of agriculture in my community is said to be mechanical and depended on crood tools like hand held hoes, cutlasses, diggers, axes, horse and donkey propelled ploughs.
Most farmers by then were depending on mixed farming, bush fallowing, ankara ridge burning and ranching animals like sheeps. By this time few species of crops and animals were common and they cultivated one and the same species for a longer time without changing it. For example maize and beans in my community was commonly white maize and beans was just red and strip line red beans. The over cultivation of a particular species depreciated the production yeild level with time in quality and quantity. For example potatoes ended up in smaller sizes as it depreciated.

Farm activities like clearing, cutting down trees, carrying harvested crops , ploughing the soil were done with cutlasses , axes and labour was manual over long distances while donkeys and horses were used to carry crops from the farm to the market. They depended on animal manure for farm nutrients and fallowing plots to regain viability. Farmers intergrated legume crops in-between cereal crops to boast yeilds for example using Tephrosia and Sesbania in a maize farm to improve yeilds. Crop Pest was managed mechanically or hand picked as they were no pesticides by then. Wood ash and animal urine or dung was used in many cases to disturb pest activity. There were limited storage facilities and local methods of food storage affected the quality and quantity of food products. For example storing perishables like tomatoes inside wood ash.

Present Day farming in my community

In my community today alot has changed as farmers have turned to second generation Agriculture where they depend so much on synthetic inputs to tackle their farm activities. Farmers in my community today cultivate vast portions of land now for either single or plantation crops , they used up vast lands for ranching like the Tadu Dairy cooperative society enterprise covering more than 22 hectares. Motorise water pumps are now common, tractors tilling up the rice farm and bikes and cars now carry farm products to the market and to homes easily. The use of pesticides like herbicides to weed the farms and clear hectares of land in few hours. Improved seed species a available for almost all the crops in my community. For example maize has red, yellow and white tomatoes has f1 hybrids of different shapes and properties, beans has red, black, white, stripped, climbers, high jack and potatoes with sprouting species like superior etc. All of this has influence a broader change in quantity and quality of food crops produce in my community before and presently.

The use of synthetic fertilizers like Npk , urea, folliar fertilizers and spraying tools has greatly influenced the production rate in yeild and quality. Even though this emergence has come with it's blessings, it also has weeknesses as there is food insecurity as many farmers do not yet master the usage of this products for sustainable production. Looking at the above points I can conclude that the evolution of farming in my community has changed tremendously over time in quality and quantity.

Thank you @thegreens for this contest and to you who is reading this post and may this change that has come from far come to us all in our various communities for good as we embrace farming the culture of cultures.