This excerpt from the film TERRA (directed by Michael Pitiot and Yann Arthus-Bertrand, original soundtrack by Armand Amar) is a preview of the footage in our collection on the theme of traditional agriculture.
Filmed in Madagascar, Algeria, Ethiopia, Mongolia, Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Kenya, these sequences show men and women cultivating the land or raising livestock without the technologies and machines of intensive agriculture.
Aerial Stock Footage
Since the Neolithic Revolution around 9000 BC, humans have shaped their ecosystem and controlled the biological cycle of domesticated species to produce the resources needed by society. By developing techniques, tools and natural fertilisers, mankind built up a body of knowledge passed down through generations.
From the 18th century onwards, agricultural and industrial revolutions led to mechanisation, then to the use of chemical fertilisers, pesticides, and the genetic modification of plant and animal species.
Today, the impact of intensive agriculture on the environment is considerable, contributing significantly to water and air pollution as well as climate change. In the rural areas of less industrialised countries, however, more traditional farming practices still survive — and our cameras have documented them across several continents.
Madagascar — On the highlands and in the rice-growing valleys, Malagasy farmers cultivate hillside slopes using ancestral techniques, shaping terraced landscapes that rank among the most photogenic on the African continent.
Ethiopia — Around Lake Tana, the source of the Blue Nile, Ethiopian farmers still work the land with ox-drawn ploughs, carrying on some of Africa's oldest farming traditions.
South Sudan — In the vast floodplains of the Nile, rural communities practise extensive livestock herding and subsistence farming dictated by the seasonal floods, in one of the continent's most remote environments.
Pakistan — In the Indus Valley, farmers still plough with oxen, continuing centuries-old agricultural techniques at the heart of one of the historic cradles of world agriculture.
Nepal — On the foothills of the Himalayas, the terraced rice fields of Nepalese farmers follow the contours of the mountainside, creating striking geometric patterns carved into the slopes when seen from above.
Mexico — Near Tehuacán, the historic birthplace of maize domestication in the Americas, farmers continue agricultural practices inherited from pre-Columbian civilisations.
Our video aerial images of traditional agriculture
