What is the difference between traditional and modern?

Answer 1

Traditionally, crops were rotated and the land rested every third year, to re-energize. Modern agriculture usually grows the same crop in the same field, year after year, depleting the soil of many elements. (No longer true. This is generally only done when the government is subsidizing farmers to such a degree that they would lose a huge amount of money if they did not, or in communist countries where the central planners will shoot them if they do not produce what they are told.) Artificial fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides and insecticides are also used excessively these days. (Opinion, and a silly one at that. No farmer wants to spend the money to pay for excess fertilizer or insecticide if they do not have to do so.)

Traditional agriculture relied on dung to fertilize crops, making disease prevalent amongst farmers. It required that a huge percentage of the population toil in the fields for weeks to plow, plant, water, weed, kill insects and harvest. After all of this work, the land tended to produce very little food, and in times of bad weather or war, might produce nothing and result in starvation.

Modern agriculture tends to rely on machines, genetic modification of crops, application of fertilizers and insecticides that work extremely well and do very little damage to the people that eat the crops. It requires very few people to produce huge quantities of food, and is much less-likely to face large disruptions in supply.