Reasons might range from being able to produce enough food for everyone to keeping farms for future generations. Explain that most Massachusetts farmers think it's important to use sustainable agricultural practices. Some of the farmers in the video talked about how they used these techniques. Some farmers counted insects before using pesticides in order to use as little pesticide as possible. This is one method practiced in integrated pest management.
Some farmers periodically change the crops they grow in fields in order to keep the soil healthy.
Sometimes farmers wait a certain amount of time before growing anything in a field so the soil can regenerate. This is crop rotation. We also saw farmers taking food waste and farm waste and composting it back into soil. Have students create a graph representing the earth's surface using calculations from the apple activity. Have students research ways farmer can prevent soil erosion.