SMALL-SCALE FARMING

Small-scale farming can be defined as a way of farming which consists of traditional methods, producing organic, unprocessed food, living with various kinds of animals, and so on. However, the original type of farming is disappearing like everything else and that is because of modernity and industrialization. The disappearance of these small scale family farms are having devastating effects such as growing unemployment in rural areas, the consumption of unhealthy and artificial food, and mental disorders.

  First of all, the disappearence of small-scale farming results in unemployment in rural areas.  In my opinion, the loss of small-scale farming affects unemployment in various ways. One of them is that when people leave their village because of their immense desire for living in big cities in modern conditions, the landlords sell their fields and people who had worked on these farms become unemployed; the impact of unemployment is still increasing gradually. The more the farms are being sold in order to live in developed cities, the more the unemployment in rural areas increases.

  Secondly, while small-scale farming is disappearing, people are also losing their healthy lives. In traditional farming techniques, farmers do not add any artificial and harmful chemicals; whereas today’s industrial farming methods are merely for producers to earn much more money instead of ensuring that customers get healthy food. Frankly, consumers should have doubts whether they eat real nutritious food or something that looks like food, but they do not. As a result, big farms have taken their place in business and people have neglected traditional farming, so our health will suffer the harmful consequences in the years to come.

  Finally, small-scale farming is good for people’s mental health even though they do not prefer this life style anymore. It is so hard to understand why people would rather live in big cities with air pollution, constant noise and traffic instead of dwelling in  small farmhouses surrounded by the sounds of birds and the magnificent smell of flowers. The present life style affects people’s mental health because there is such a thing as ‘nature deficit disorder’. People get stressed and angry when they keep away from nature, then they put themselves on medication to get used to these unpleasant situations.

  All in all, while leaving villages in order to live in big cities seems like a privilege, people should notice the importance of small-scale farming. Being away from villages means being away from nature. Therefore, people struggle to adapt to unnatural situations and their physical and psychological health suffers due to living in these modern countries. Also, villagers are becoming unemployed because they cannot find work anymore. I wish that every person would perceive these differences and decide correctly what their real needs are.