Efficient farming

I spent most of my early childhood in a village in South-East Romania. As soon as I learned how to walk, I had to follow my grandparents to the field where they worked using saps and rakes. Soon after I learned how to milk a cow. I always assumed that this is the way farming is done all over the world. Little did I know that in the developed world this kind of farming is a thing of the past. During our LSS Trip to Virginia I had the opportunity to talk to an American farmer and dairy producer. He showed us the technology he uses to milk his cows. I was blown away! With two employees he is able to run a farm with 140 cows. This would not be possible without modern technology. What was even more striking though was  that he said this kind of technology has been around from before he was born. His father had been using automatic milking technology from 1925. I wanted to call my grandma and tell her. When they say Romania is 50 years behind America, they are being polite. If in the 1990s we lacked technology that had been in America since the 1920s, it means the technological gap is much grater than 50 years.