Airplane travel is kind of the worst. But
also, kind of the best, because farms. Hi, I’m Kate and this is MinuteEarth.
Seriously, one of my favorite things about being on a plane – assuming I’m not stuck on the
aisle – is that I have a literal window onto all the amazing shapes farm fields take. Like, in
Hokkaido, the entire landscape is a patchwork quilt of nearly-perfect squares of farmland.
These farms in the UK look like irregular puzzle pieces packed tightly together. In one part of
Bolivia, farms are shaped like pieces of pie. On the shores of the St. Lawrence river in Quebec,
you’ll see long, skinny threads of farmland. Not too far away, in Wisconsin, the fields are made of
curvy stripes. Along South Africa’s Orange River, the landscape is dotted with, well, dots. These
Libyan farms are hexagons. These fields in southern China look like the tiny ridges on your
fingerprints. And that’s just a fraction of the shapes out there. When I look out the plane
window, I can't help but wonder why any one farm is a puzzle piece or hexagon or fingerprint
or anything else…what forces shape these shapes? History is one of these forces; it matters whether
an area’s farmland was planned out, like these carefully-designed pie pieces, or developed
more organically, like those UK puzzle pieces. Then, there’s what the farm is farming; are
we talking plants or animals? Fields for crops require regular tilling, planting, and harvesting
– often by machine – and regular shapes are the most efficient to work, especially with big
heavy equipment. Fields where animals graze don’t have the same constraints; that’s one
reason you’ll sometimes see perfect squares, and other times much more irregular shapes.
Geography is also a big deal as far as a farm’s shape. Like, on the sloppiest of slopes, farmers
have to actually construct flat terraces of land in order to farm at all – that’s how you get
these fingertip ridges. And on less-slopey slopes, water running downhill can wash soil and
nutrients off fields; farmers sometimes account for this erosion by planting crops
along the contours of the landscape, which helps water stay put; that’s how stripes crop up.
There’s also the issue of where a farm’s water comes from. Where water is scarce, farmers rely
on irrigation, which often distributes water from a central source. So lots of irrigated farms
take on radial shapes; these circular fields are fed by a central pivoting sprinkler, and these
futuristic-looking hexagons by water pumped from deep underground. And even where there’s plenty
of water, farms need access to it; each of these long, thin strips butts right up against the river
- that’s how so-called “ribbon farms” happen. Plus, in an area full of ribbon farms, houses
are really close together, so it’s really easy to have your neighbor over for dinner – a must
in tight-knit communities. And when you look closely at those Libyan hexagons and the Bolivian
pie pieces, you can see that they’re also laid out so that the homes are close together;
our human desire for community farms too. This is obviously just scratching the surface
– there is incredible diversity in the farms all over our planet, and a lot of things
– from history to technology to climate to culture – that might be interacting to
shape any one. But the next time you’re on an airplane – or messing around on Google Earth
– pay attention to the shapes of the farms, because they can tell you a lot about a
place. Or, because they’re just *plane* cool. This video was brought to you
by Gates Ventures. Thanks Bill!
