Agriculture: then and now - Soil preservation (Video) - Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC)

Do the words “mouldboard plough” mean anything to you? Farming practices have changed significantly in the last 150 years. See how much we’ve grown.

Video transcript

[Upbeat music.]

[White background]

Text on screen: agriculture: then and now

Text on screen: soil preservation

[Fade to a black and white picture of a young boy using a mouldboard plough being pulled by two horses.]

Text on screen: then

Female narrator:
Then: Farmers used a mouldboard plough to turn the soil over, making it loose…

Text on screen: loose

…and airy…

Text on screen: airy

…for good root growth. It was a popular farming practice, but made soil less fertile over time.

Text on screen: less fertile over time

Top soil could be washed away by rain or blown away…

Text on screen: soil blown away

…by the wind, creating the perfect conditions for disasters such as the prairie dust bowl of the 1930s.

[A cloud of dust blows across the screen, picture fades to a modern black and white one of a man tending his field.]

Text on screen: now

[Picture gradually turns to colour.]

Now: Thanks to research in farming practices, much fewer farmers till the soil, leaving stalks…

Text on screen: stalks

…and roots…

Text on screen: roots

…from last year’s crop on the soil surface. This keeps water,

Text on screen: water

…organic matter, and nutrients…

Text on screen: nutrients

...in the soil and reduces erosion.

Text on screen: reduces erosion

It’s better for crops and the environment.

[Fade to white.]

We’ve come a long way.

Text on screen: We’ve come a long way.

[Upbeat music fades out.]

[Canada wordmark]

Text on screen: (c) Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada, represented by the Minister for Agriculture and Agri-Food (2017)

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