Living with the Land facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Living with the Land
Entrance to the attraction within The Land pavilion
Epcot Area Future World (1982-2021) World Nature (2021-) Coordinates 28°22′25.97″N 81°33′10.39″W / 28.3738806°N 81.5528861°W / 28.3738806; -81.5528861 Status {{{status}}} Opening date October 1, 1982 (1982-10-01)
Ride statistics
Attraction type	Hybrid dark ride/greenhouse tour
Designer	WED Enterprises
Theme	Agriculture
Music	George Wilkins
Capacity	1600 riders per hour
Vehicle type	Tandem boats
Vehicles	16, with two spares
Riders per vehicle	40
Rows	10
Riders per row	4
Duration	14:55
Host	Marsha Mason (queue) Mike Brassell (on-board vehicle narration)
Audio-animatronics	35
Previous names	Listen to the Land
Sponsor	Kraft (1982-1993, as Listen to the Land) Nestlé (1993-2007) Chiquita Brands International (2011-2020)
Fastpass+ available
Wheelchair accessible
Assistive listening available

Living with the Land is a slow boat ride at Epcot in Walt Disney World Resort. It was first called Listen to the Land. This attraction teaches you all about agriculture and how we can grow food in new, smart ways. It focuses on making farming better for the Earth and more efficient.

Discovering How We Grow Food

A prairie scene inside the Living with the Land ride

Your journey on Living with the Land starts with a boat ride through different natural places. You'll see a forest during a thunderstorm, showing how nature shapes the land. Then, you'll float through amazing artificial areas. These include a tropical rainforest, a hot desert, and the wide-open American prairie.

These areas use cool effects like sounds, lights, heat, wind, and mist. They make you feel like you're really there! Some of the moving animal figures, called Audio-Animatronics, were first made for another Disney ride that was never built. Next, your boat goes through a small theater. Here, you learn how people and the environment work together. You'll see how we've changed the land to help us grow food.

Exploring the Living Laboratory

The second part of the ride takes you into "The Living Laboratory." This is a special greenhouse area. Here, you'll see amazing ideas for the future of farming. All the plants in this section are grown without soil! This method is called hydroponics. Instead of dirt, plants grow in things like sand, perlite, coconut fibers, or rockwool.

There are five cool areas in this "living laboratory":

• Tropics Greenhouse - This greenhouse is full of plants from warm, tropical places. You'll see both foods you know and some really unusual ones. Look for bananas, cacao (where chocolate comes from!), jackfruit, date palms, and even dragonfruit.
• Aquacell - This part is all about "fish farming," also known as aquaculture. You'll see big tanks with lots of fish. There are also smaller tanks and tubes to show how fish grow. You might spot tilapia, sturgeon, catfish, and even shrimp. Some of these fish are later served at the Coral Reef Restaurant in the The Seas with Nemo and Friends pavilion!
• Temperate Greenhouse - This greenhouse grows crops from milder climates. It used to be called the Desert Greenhouse. Now, it shows off giant vegetables! You might see huge pumpkins, giant winter melons, and even a "Nine-pound Lemon." Other plants here include sunflowers, beets, and cotton.

A Mickey Mouse shaped pumpkin

• String Greenhouse - This greenhouse shows clever ways to grow lots of plants in a small space. It uses methods like "vertical growing." This means plants grow upwards on special frames, almost like trees! One famous example is "The Land's tomato tree." It once grew over 32,000 tomatoes in just 16 months! This was a world record. You can also see eggplants, peppers, and different types of lettuce. Did you know they grow cucumbers and pumpkins shaped like Mickey Mouse here? They use special molds to make them! Many of the fresh foods grown here are used in the restaurants at The Land pavilion. Over 30 tons of food are harvested from The Land every year!
• Creative Greenhouse - The last greenhouse shows some really futuristic ideas for farming. Most plants here grow using Aeroponics. This is where a fine mist of water and nutrients is sprayed right onto the plant roots. The roots hang in the air, without any soil! You can see some roots inside spinning columns or A-frame shapes. Some roots are even out in the open so you can see them clearly. This greenhouse also has a small display of NASA growing units. These were made for growing food on long space trips! You might see tomatoes, squash, basil, and even super-dwarf wheat.

Behind the Scenes Labs

The Living Laboratory also has a few special labs:

• Biotechnology Lab - This lab is connected to the Creative Greenhouse. It's a very clean research area. Scientists from the USDA work here. They research ways to make crops better. This lab also makes "Mickey's Mini Gardens," which you can buy at Epcot.
• Integrated Pest Management Lab - This lab studies insects. It raises helpful insects to use at The Land and all over Walt Disney World. You can't see this lab from the boat ride. But you can visit it on a special "Behind the Seeds" tour. They raise tiny, stingless parasitoid wasps and ladybugs here. These insects help protect the plants naturally.

The ride ends with a colorful display of people and food from around the world. You also see a projection of Earth from space. It reminds us how important it is to care for our planet and its resources.

From Listen to Living with the Land

The ride you experience today, Living with the Land, is an updated version of an older attraction called Listen to the Land. Not too much changed between the two versions. The very first scene, which showed a plant growing in a fancy way, was replaced with the thunderstorm scene you see now. Also, the Biotechnology lab moved from the exit tunnel to the Creative Greenhouse.

The old theme song, "Listen to the Land," isn't used in the ride anymore. But you can still hear an instrumental version of it in the background music around The Land pavilion.

Images for kids

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  A demonstration of non-traditional agriculture in the greenhouse of The Land pavilion, as seen from Living with the Land

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  A demonstration of intercropping, as seen in the greenhouse of The Land pavilion, as seen from Living with the Land

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  A "tomato tree"

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  Pepper plants in "Verti-Gro" columns