HIGH-TECHNOLOGY FARMING

HIGH-TECHNOLOGY FARMING. During the twentieth century, farming changed more than at any time since it began. Crop and animal production in the United States went from a labor intensive to a capital-intensive operation. What caused these changes?

Crop Production

The revolutions in crop production started with the mechanical revolution that began with the plow, the planter, and the reaper, and the shift from horsepower to tractor power. The mechanical revolution started after the turn of the twentieth century with the replacement of the horse with modern tractors, combines, and cotton pickers. Since that time, machinery design has kept pace with the increased tractor power.

The second revolution in crop production began with the introduction of hybrid corn in the 1930s. Since then, average U.S. corn yields have increased from 25 bushels in 1930 to more than 140 bushels per acre today. Corn hybrids, along with other practices, greatly enhanced growing conditions so the genetic potential of the hybrid is expressed during most years. The plant breeding revolution has had similar impact on yield of other crops like rice, wheat, and soybean.

The third revolution in crop production came with the increased availability of fertilizers, particularly nitrogen fertilizer. The fertility revolution gained momentum when munitions plants built during World War II were converted into factories for making nitrogen fertilizer. The ready availability of nitrogen fertilizer, along with better understanding of fertility through soil testing, improved fertilizer application and crop growth. Other nutrients like limestone, phosphorus, and potassium helped achieve the genetic potential of the crop. Fertilizer applications are still improving through variable rate applications as part of precision agriculture. Virtually every American farmer uses fertilizer to increase crop yields.

The fourth revolution is in the use of herbicides, insecticides, and fungicides to control weeds, insects and diseases that reduce crop growth. This revolution began in the 1950s. Modern weed control practices enable farmers to plant crops much earlier. Now corn and other crops grow during more favorable moisture and temperature conditions without competition from weeds for light, water, and nutrients.

The fifth revolution in crop production is the biotechnology revolution. It did not influence crop production until about 1995. Present benefits include better quality seed such as canola, insect resistant seed such as bollworm resistant cotton and corn borer resistant corn, seed with herbicide resistance such as soybeans, cotton, and corn. Many other changes are imminent. Use of seeds with herbicide, insect and disease resistance impact favorably on the environment because they replace less environmentally friendly chemicals. The revolution in biotechnology promises to increase quantity and quality of the foods we eat.

The sixth revolution in crop production is the new availability of computers, software, and satellites. This technology enables what is often referred to as precision agriculture (PA). Precision agriculture technology enables advances from a data-poor to a data-rich environment. Previously, yields were measured by fields; now it is possible to measure yield continuously. The Internet affects farmers' business practices just as it does other types of business.

Livestock Production

The farm livestock sector has changed dramatically in the past fifty years. Farms have gone from mixed crop and livestock operations to specialized livestock enterprises. Economic factors—the comparative cost of land, labor, capital, and environmental regulations—have brought about these changes. The cost of labor and land per animal fell dramatically while capital investment and environmental costs increased. Farms with small herds and flocks yielded to large specialized farms with large animal concentrations.

Before 1950, farms had many different crops, including hay and pasture, as well as various types of animals: cattle, hogs, and chickens. In the twenty-first century, there are large specialized farms: dairies, beef feedlots, hog operations, and chicken and turkey houses. Such operations use small land areas or are housed entirely inside buildings. Many animal units can be managed with small amounts of labor. The result is animal farms where all the best health controls are available and applied to keep herds and flocks healthy.

Computer technology has increased the amount and way data is collected. Dairies know the daily and annual milk output for every cow in the herd; hog farmers know the weight gain and feed conversion efficiency of every sire used in their breeding operation; cattle feedlot managers know the weight gain and the carcass quality of every animal; and poultry producers know the feed-to-meat ratio of their broilers and the egg production of each laying hen.

The ease of obtaining data by computer and the ready availability of well designed equipment and buildings has decreased labor and enabled increases in size of animal operations. Increases in the economic efficiency of producing meat and eggs have reduced the cost of products at the grocery store. While many small animal operations exist, most production is from larger operations. Biotechnology's promise for animal agriculture is comparable for crop production and will lead to many new products.

Animals such as cattle, sheep, and goats still graze land too rolling, too dry, or otherwise not suited for crop production. Such cow-calf and sheep operations harvest the biomass that would otherwise be uneconomical to harvest and supply feedlots with animals. Land well suited for crop production—flat, with adequate rainfall or available irrigation—has reduced animal grazing during the past twenty to fifty years.

Summary

Crop and animal agriculture has changed more in the past century than it has since farming began many millennia ago. Modern-day crop production practices, often called precision agriculture (PA), benefited from all earlier revolutions in crop production. Precision agriculture technology developed because of ubiquitous and inexpensive computational power, software (GIS), and satellite location systems (GPS). Precision agriculture equipment enables variable-rate fertilizer, herbicide, plant population, and yield assessment. Wide adoption of PA equipment will occur as it becomes economical. Technology has moved crop production from a high labor and low capital intensive to a low labor and high capital intensive industry. Typical Midwest Corn Belt farms have gone from less than 160 acres to more than 500 acres. The labor necessary to produce a bushel of corn decreased from more than thirty minutes in 1930 to a fraction of a minute in 2002. Availability of high powered well designed equipment; well-adapted hybrids and varieties; precise weed, insect, and disease control; improved plant and animal genetics; and improved animal health have all contributed to the revolution in plant production we have discussed. Biotechnology and computer revolutions enable us to manage large operations and design crops and animals that will be more nutritious in the future. Consumers are the major beneficiary of these developments since food purchases now requires less than 10 percent of average income.

See also Agriculture, Origins of; Agriculture since the Industrial Revolution; Agronomy; Crop Improvement; Food Production, History of; Food Supply and the Global Food Market; Food Supply, Food Shortages; Green Revolution; Herbicides; Horticulture; Livestock Production; Pesticides .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Conway, Gordon. The Doubly Green Revolution: Food for All in the Twenty-first Century. Ithaca, N.Y.: Comstock Publishing, 1997.

Lal, Rattan. "Viewpoint: A Modest Proposal for the Year 2001: We Can Control Greenhouse Gases and Feed the World . . .with Proper Soil Management." Journal of Soil and Water Conservation 55, no. 4 (2000): 429–433.

Manning, Richard. Food's Frontier: The Next Green Revolution. New York: North Point Press, 2000.

Runge, E. C. A., and Frank M. Hons. "Precision Agriculture: Development of a Hierarchy of Variables Influencing Crop Yields." In Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Precision Agriculture, edited by P. C. Robert, R. H. Rust, and W. E. Larson, part A, pp. 143–158. St. Paul, Minn., July, 1998.

E. C. A. Runge