Reading Modern Agriculture Discuss the following questions

●Reading Modern Agriculture

Discuss the following questions with you partner. 1、Look at the pictures and compare traditional and modern farming. 2、What are the advantages and disadvantages of each way ? 3、What other changes have happened on farms in the last 100 years?

Old way In the first picture: third picture: second picture: A farmer can only keep a few chickens. Modern way A chickenfeeding chickens. modern chicken thou. Afarmer / A hen. farm. factory can keep sands of chickens. It cost a lot to start a It cost only a little money. factory. What are the differences? don’t. Compare problems and the modern killed have many the old if ill, many die or are They don’t taste The eggs and meat are ways of raising chickens. so delicious. tasty. The chickens are free. not free, can sit in small cages

Chemical Fertilizer In Naturalpicture: the first Fertilizer A pile of animal shit (manure) It is free or cost very little. It is expensive to buy. In the second picture: A bag of chemical fertilizer. It is easy to be put into the It needs lots of work to fields. be made. What are the It usually has no It usually has a bad smell. differences? smell. Compare the old and the modernto store. It needs a lot of place to It takes little place store. ways of feeding the crops. It is difficult to carry and It is easy to transport. move.

Careful reading Read the text carefully and choose the best answers: 1. In China only seven percent of the land is used for 2. farming. This is D ____. A because farmers don't need more land to produce food for the whole population B because China needs more and more land to build cities C because there are not enough farmers to work on the land D because the other land cannot be used for agriculture 2. Fertilisation is a technique that is used to _______. A A. make poor soil better B. make wet land drier C. make dry land wetter D. grow vegetables with their roots in water instead of earth

3. Modern agriculture means finding ways to _____. C A. increase irrigation and stop using fertilisers B. stop irrigation and using fertilisers C. increase production and be friendly to the environment D. produce the same amount while taking better care of nature 4. In the sentence". . . they are protected from the C wind, rain and insects", "they" means _____. A. greenhouses B. roots C. vegetables D. tomatoes 5. In GM "M" stands for "modified", which means "changed". What changes is _____. C A. the way in which poor soil is made better B. the way in which Chinese farmers work on their land C. the way in which crops develop from seed D. the way in which farmers take care of the environment

Task 2 Reading—Scanning **Divide the text into 4 parts and find the main idea of each part: The 1 st part — the first paragraph The 2 st part — the second paragraph The 3 st part — the third paragraph The 4 st part — the fourth, fifth and sixth paragraphs.

Divide the text into four parts. Part I (Para 1) Part II (Para 2) Part III (Para 3) Part IV (Para A brief introduction to agriculture and arable land in China How to use advanced techniques to improve agricultural production Scientists started to develop new techniques to increase agricultural production without harming the environment Using the latest technologies to 4— 6) settle the problem with the shortage of arable land

Questions: 1. How much does arable land take up in China? 2. How many ways are mentioned to make the land produce more? 3. What does new techniques mean? 4. When did scientist start to develop new techniques? 5. How many unusual ways are mentioned to deal with the shortage of arable land?

1) Read Para 4 and answer the following question: What are the advantages of growing vegetables in greenhouse? (A. It can save the arable land. B. It can protect the vegetables from the wind, rain and insects. C. The temperature can be controlled. ) 2) Read Para 5 and Para 6 to answer the following questions: A. What are the advantages of GM tomatoes, watermelons and rice? (a. The GM tomatoes are bigger and healthier; They can grow without danger from diseases; They also need much less time to get ripe. b. The GM watermelons will be seedless. c. The GM rice will have more vitamins and can grow in poor soil. )

Post-Reading Modern agriculture has developed through periods according to the text. What was mainly developed in each period ? advanced technical information Period 1 : More was brought in from abroad in the 1980 s. Period 2 : Scientists started to develop new techniques to increase agricultural production without harming the environment from--Period 3 : Using the latest technologies to grow vegetables, such as greenhouses, GM.

Consolidation Listen to the tape and fill in the blanks with proper words according to the passage. odern With the development of m____ agriculture , farmers are realizing more and more the importance of protecting nature. Since the early 1990 s, scientists have been trying to echniques roduction develop new t____ to increase agricultural p_____ and protect the e_______ at the same time. Some nvironment hemicals c____ can help to produce better crops but are very armful h_____to our environment. Some have a very good e_____on removing weeds but they damage crops at ffect the same time. So new techniques should not only help riendly increase production but also be f_____ to the environment. We should depend on high technology and raditional t_______ methods as well to develop our agriculture because food production and taking care of the environment mportance are of the same i______.

Pair work • ---Would you like …? --- I like …/ I like to… eggplants potatoes carrots tomato cabbage

Sample: kind How would you change it? Why do you want to change it in this way? fruit watermelon Grow them like blocks instead of balls Easier to store and takes less space vegetable onion Make sure they don’t hurt your eyes anymore Easier to peel and cut animal sheep To have red wool