Spoilers for Dr.STONE New World Episode 1The return of Dr. Stone sees Senku and the people of Ishigami village make their biggest leap forward yet: the re-discovery of agriculture.
While the goal of Dr. Stone season 3 is to launch a ship that can make it to the other side of the ocean, there are quite a few obstacles that Senku and co. will have to overcome before that's possible. One of the biggest problems facing them, aside from actually building the ship, is food that's capable of lasting during their travels. Up until now, Ishigami has mostly been a fishing village, with their food occasionally supplemented by what they're able to forage for, as with their wild grain ramen noodles from previous seasons. There simply isn't enough to forage for such a long journey, though, so there was only one option left--grow their own food from scratch.
Dr. Stone's Senku Revives Agriculture
Their planned ship is meant to travel both by sail and by motor, so they already needed to source some oil in order for the motor to run efficiently enough to be useful. To that end, Senku and Ryusui had previously constructed a hot air balloon, which they hoped would allow them to spot the oil fields from the air. As it turns out, though, that wasn't the only thing they were able to spot from the air. First, they spotted a herd of feral goats, which could potentially be re-domesticated, but they had to be feeding on something nearby; sure enough, they discovered a large field of wild-growing wheat, which had taken over when the humans disappeared. Harvesting some of this wheat in order to get seeds, the villagers were able to till some land and plant the seeds, and Taiju even ed how to use seashells as fertilizer, enhancing their crops greatly.
While growing the wheat obviously took a fair amount of time, they now have the raw materials necessary to create hardy foods like hardtack that can withstand a trans-oceanic voyage. Many of the people of the village actually begin crying upon eating the bread for the first time, as they finally have a stable food supply. Previously, the villagers had been at the mercy of fortune since most of their food came from fishing; as some of the old timers recall, there have been years in the past where there simply wasn't enough fish to go around, and villagers died from starvation. The return of agriculture is an absolutely monumental moment for humanity's comeback in Dr. Stone, even outside the context of Senku's mission to cross the ocean.
Agriculture is a game-changer for the people of Dr. Stone's world, especially now that there are so many revived humans from Tsukasa's Empire of Might that also need food. While there are still plenty of problems that need to be solved, Senku has led these people on another massive leap forward technologically in Dr. Stone, proving once again that science is essential to humanity.
