Where do our foods come from

Everyone knows that most of the foods we eat every day come from farms, be it fresh or already processed food, they can all be traced back to farms. Farming is one of the oldest professions known to man which has been sustaining us since ancient times. It might sound crazy but do you know that some people don't actually know where their foods come from? I saw a video on TikTok a few months back about a survey that was conducted in the US and it turns out that some people didn't know that foods are grown in farms.

I won't really blame them because in the modern world we live in today, farms are mostly restricted to the rural regions or countryside, and in a country like the US, most of their foods are heavily processed. I mean, I saw another video of someone saying that the breads they have over there can stay up to a month before going bad, now tell me that is not screaming "high level of preservatives." Meanwhile, the bread we have here in Nigeria stays at most 5 days and you can no longer eat them.

I have done some gardening over the years and I will tell you that it's not easy, especially if you don't have passion for it. When I was a kid, my mom had a small garden close to our house and I enjoyed tending to the plants there. My grandmother in the village has a big farm where she plants yams, maize, cassava and different types of vegetables. Despite her old age, she still goes to the farm frequently and can work there longer than I can. This made me realize that people who have been farming for a very long time end up becoming used to that type of life.

But for me, my strength lies in digital screens, and it's funny because I actually studied agriculture at the university, although I specialized in fish farming. I did some farming in my third year, where we were mandated to carry out basic farming practices on individual plots of land, and then plant maize and fluted pumpkin. We were graded on the quality of the products after harvest and how well we handled different challenges we faced such as weed and insect problems. It wasn't easy, especially the part where we had to prepare the land before planting the seeds.

That experience increased the amount of respect I have for farmers and made me see them in a whole new light. Farming is a noble profession but it's just unfortunate that a lot of people underestimate farmers but only remember them in times of food crises. Right now in Nigeria, food inflation is over 40% and one of the factors that contributed to this is that farmers are no longer going to farm due to banditry and terrorism. We rely a lot on the Northern part of the country for food because they have the largest land mass for farming and also good soil that supports a lot of crops.

But the problem is that the north has been faced with a lot of security issues over the years, including farmers getting attacked at their farms. A lot of them are no scared to go back to their farms, and this has eventually led to a shortage of food supply and more demand for the available ones, which inevitably led to an increase in price. These days, a lot of people are now going into small-scale farming and producing some of the foods they eat such as yam, potatoes, fruits and vegetables. My mom currently has a small garden close to her shop where she grows peppers, tomatoes and some vegetables.

From time to time, she harvests some of these crops and uses them to cook. A lot of people are also interested in small-scale farming but are restricted by the availability of land. Some have opted for the use of plastic bags or containers to grow certain vegetables which I would say is a better alternative. In the end, farming is very important and easily underestimated but the fact remains that if nobody engages in farming, then the whole world is screwed. As I said earlier, the majority of what we eat every day comes from farms and without them, we will have to rely on an alternative source of food which will definitely be hunting, and that isn't exactly sustainable in the long run.

This is my entry for May Inleo Prompt, day 2. Come be a part of this awesome daily prompt by clicking on this link.

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