Farming is the practice of growing crops and raising animals for food, fiber, and other products people need. A farmer might plant fields of wheat or corn, tend vegetable gardens, raise chickens for eggs, or care for dairy cows. Farming transforms wild land into productive fields and pastures that feed communities and nations.

For most of human history, nearly everyone farmed. Families grew their own food and raised their own animals, living directly off the land. Today, modern farmers use tractors, irrigation systems, and scientific knowledge about soil and weather to grow food for thousands of people. A wheat farmer in Kansas might grow grain that becomes bread in New York. A dairy farmer in Wisconsin produces milk that travels to stores across the Midwest.

The word also describes the act of collecting something systematically. In video games, players talk about farming resources when they repeat an action over and over to gather coins, experience points, or materials. The idea is the same: patient, repeated work that yields a harvest.

Farming remains essential to human survival. Every meal you eat connects back to farmers who planted seeds, tended crops, and brought in harvests. Without farming, cities and civilizations as we know them couldn't exist.