Farms grow crops and raise animals, and farming looks very different today than it did in the early 1900s. In the early 1900s an average U.S. farmer produced enough food to feed a family of five; many of today's farmers can feed that family and about 100 other people. As of 2024, the United States had 1.88 million farms, down 8 percent from the 2.04 million in the 2017 Census of Agriculture.

About 11,000 years ago, people began learning how to grow grains and roots and settled into a life based on farming. Adapting wild plants and animals for people to use is called domestication. The Fertile Crescent, named for its rich soils, is found in the Middle East. Food surpluses meant people did not have to spend all their time growing food.

Plants need water, and farmers have long supplied it. Around 5500 B.C., farmers in Mesopotamia developed simple irrigation systems. Irrigation brings water to crops through pipes, canals or sprinklers instead of relying on rain alone. Irrigation water comes from groundwater pumped from aquifers or from surface water such as streams, rivers and lakes. Seeds need water and warmth to start growing, and a seed has a seed coat that protects it and a food reserve that feeds the baby plant inside.

You may have heard that growing the same crop in a field every year is best for the soil. Farmers rotate crops instead. Crop rotation means growing a series of different crops in the same field over the seasons. It helps break the cycle of pests and disease that builds up when one crop is grown again and again. In the open-field system of medieval Europe, one field was planted in spring, another in autumn, and one was left unplanted, or fallow.

Wheat, corn (maize) and rice are grains that people around the world grow and eat, and flour for bread comes from wheat grain. Explorers in the 1400s and 1500s took potatoes, tomatoes, corn, beans, peanuts and tobacco from the Americas to Europe. Fruits and vegetables are food crops that farmers grow, and some crops, such as oats and alfalfa, are grown to feed farm animals.

Under every field is soil, and soil is more than dirt. Soil is made of mineral particles, organic matter, water and air. In an ideal soil, about 50 percent is pore space filled with water and air, 5 percent is organic matter and 45 percent is minerals. You may have heard that soil has nothing alive in it. In fact, soil is a living ecosystem with bacteria, fungi, worms and insects in it. Earthworms live in soil and help break down dead plant material, and plants grow in soil, which gives them water, nutrients and support.

A dairy farm milks cows to get milk. On a dairy farm, milk is cooled as soon as possible, collected in a bulk tank and then transported to a processor. Milk is bottled or made into ice cream, cheese or other products, then refrigerated and distributed. Cooling fresh produce right after harvest also helps it stay good for longer. The cold chain is a series of refrigerated cooling, storage and transport steps that keeps food at the right temperature from grower to consumer.

Words to know

• surpluses: extra amounts
• rotation: taking turns
• fallow: left unplanted
• ecosystem: living community
• domestication: adapting wild life