On Easter Sunday, the choir emotionally sang “Ten Thousand Years.” Although the song inspired us to think about the future and where would we be, because I was never good at predicting far into the future, our faith takes on a whole new meaning. To even tweak our imagination as to what the future might be we must look back at what we can remember and then take a peek back in history.
Ten thousand years ago was just after the ice age. Farmers in the Middle East had just begun to cultivate barley and wheat. Earliest uses for grains was to make beer, gruel, soup and eventually bread.
Ten thousand years ago religions as we know them today did not exist, but the gods of sun, water, wind, and fertility were very important. Astrology was just invented and studying the stars opened up a newer, much more enormous vision of how the world began and how we got here. Even though the world’s greatest thinkers have tried to explain how the world began they eventually get to a point where they have no solid answer.
Only a few hundred years ago, most people still believed that the earth was flat. Ships moved by sail until only a couple hundred years ago. The steam age only started 250 years ago. Even though oil was discovered in China about 600 B.C., it wasn’t found in Canada until 1857 in a little town in southern Ontario.
Horses were the power in farming until farmers’ sons went to World War II and there were not enough farmers left to produce food. Tractors and combines powered with some form of oil let the Canadian farmers continue to not only feed Canadians, but send much needed food to Europe to feed troops and citizens.
Electricity, nuclear power, telephone, television, chemical fertilizer, chemical sprays, insecticides, power tools, chainsaws and even modern medicine did not appear until the mid-1900s. My dad never even dreamed of cell phones or computers, let alone self-driving cars or GPS guided farm equipment.
In the early 1980s I was asked, “What will a farm be like in the future?” I predicted there would be a lot less large farms and a lot more small farms.
The option to use more sophisticated and larger equipment and chemicals to control weeds has allowed farmers to crop thousands of acres when the farmer’s grandfather only farmed a hundred acres. Dairy cows now can produce twice the milk per cow. We have more efficient dairy barns that allow the farmer to keep multiple numbers of milk cows.
Beef farmers used to be 25 cow herds but now many 300 cow herds dot the landscape. As a result, our county now has only a couple hundred farmers where there once was more than 600 only 50 years ago.
Now we find a growing number of smaller farms who produce everything from beef or goats to flowers and buffalo. Many farms in our county today are part-time farmers who can enjoy a wonderful lifestyle and raise their children in a safer, more inquisitive atmosphere while contributing to our rural communities and producing a variety of local, fresh, wholesome foods.
Where will humanity be in 10,000 years? Let’s hope that our elected politicians look a lot farther ahead than getting elected in the next election. Before we vote for our next politician let’s also hope that we look a few years ahead because we are responsible for what kind of a planet our grandkids inherit, not just how rich or how easy it will be next year. Where you will end up is up to your belief.
Chris Judd is a farmer in Clarendon on land that has been in his family for generations.
gladcrest@gmail.com
