A Day at the Farm

In the picture, the children are on a learning journey at a farm. Some are harvesting vegetables from the beds while others are feeding the animals or listening to a farmer explaining how the crops are grown. They are wearing hats and gloves and carrying baskets for what they have picked. What I also noticed is that they are handling the plants carefully, so someone must have shown them the right way to do it.

I once grew bean sprouts for a Science project, using a jar and a piece of cloth on my kitchen window sill. I had to rinse them twice a day and I was surprised at how quickly they grew, since there was nothing visible on the first day and a full jar by the fourth. I also learnt that they turned bitter if I forgot to rinse them, which happened once. It made me appreciate how much attention farmers must pay every single day.

Yes, I feel it is important. In Singapore we buy almost everything already packed in a supermarket, so it is easy to forget that food comes from soil, seeds and someone's hard work rather than from a shelf. Knowing this makes us waste less, because you think differently about throwing away food once you have seen how long it takes to grow. Most importantly, Singapore imports over ninety per cent of our food, so understanding local farming matters for our future food security.