Agriculture Industry

The ability to produce sufficient food and fiber to feed and clothe its population is the most important natural resource a nation can have. In modern urban societies, it is also the natural resource that is most often taken for granted.

Background

The beginnings of agriculture predate the written history of humankind. No one knows when the first crop was cultivated, but at some time in the distant past humans discovered that seeds from certain wild grasses could be collected and planted in land that could be controlled, the end product of which could later be gathered for food. Most authorities believe this occurred at about the same time in both the Old World and New World, some eight thousand to ten thousand years ago. The earliest attempts at growing crops were primarily to supplement the food supply provided by hunting and gathering. However, as the ability to produce crops increased, people began to domesticate animals, and their reliance on hunting and gathering decreased, allowing the development of permanent human settlements.

As far back as six thousand years ago, agriculture was firmly established in Asia, India, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Mexico, Central America, and South America. The earliest agricultural centers were located near large rivers that helped maintain soil fertility by the deposition of new topsoil with each annual flooding cycle. As agriculture moved into regions that lacked the annual flooding of the large rivers, people began to utilize a technique known as slash-and-burn agriculture. In this type of agriculture, a farmer clears a field, burns the trees and brush, and farms the field. After a few years, soil nutrients become depleted, so the farmer must repeat the process. This type of agriculture is still practiced in some developing countries and is one reason that the tropical rain forests are disappearing at such a fast rate.

Until the nineteenth century, most farms and ranches were family-owned, and most farmers practiced sustenance agriculture: Each farmer or rancher produced a variety of crops sufficient to feed himself and his family as well as a small excess to be sold for cash or bartered for other goods or services. Agricultural tools such as plows were made of wood, and almost all agricultural activities required human or animal labor. This situation placed a premium on large families to provide the help needed to tend the fields. The Industrial Revolution changed agriculture just as it did almost all other industries. Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin in 1793. The mechanical reaper was invented by Cyrus McCormick, and John Lane and John Deere began the commercial manufacture of the steel plow in 1833 and 1837, respectively. These inventions led the way for the development of the many different types of agricultural machinery that resulted in the mechanization of most farms and ranches. By the early part of the twentieth century, most agricultural enterprises in the United States were mechanized. The Industrial Revolution produced a significant change in society. The industrialized nations were gradually transformed from agrarian societies into urban societies. People involved in agricultural production left the farms to go to the city to work in the factories. At the same time, there was no longer a need for large numbers of people to produce crops. As a result, fewer people were required to produce more agricultural produce for an increasing number of consumers. This trend continues in developing nations with more rural dwellers, adding to the overcrowding in urban centers.

Modern Agriculture

As populations continued to grow, there was a need to select and produce crops with higher yields. The Green Revolution of the twentieth century helped to make these higher yields possible. Basic information supplied by biological scientists allowed the agricultural scientists to develop new, higher-yielding varieties of numerous crops, particularly the seed grains that supply most of the calories necessary for maintenance of the world’s population. These higher-yielding crop varieties, along with improved farming methods, resulted in tremendous increases in the world’s food supply. The new crop varieties also led to an increased reliance on monoculture. While the practice of growing only one crop over a vast number of hectares has resulted in much higher yields than planting multiple crops, it has also decreased the genetic variability of many agricultural plants, increased the need for commercial fertilizers, and produced an increased susceptibility to damage from a host of biotic and abiotic factors. These latter two developments have resulted in a tremendous growth in the agricultural chemical industry. Today’s modern agricultural unit requires relatively few employees, is highly mechanized, devotes large amounts of land to the production of only one crop, and is highly reliant on agricultural chemicals such as fertilizers and pesticides.

Agricultural Diversity

With all the diversity that has occurred in modern agriculture, the industry is subdivided into many different specialties. On the animal side of the industry, there is the beef industry, which deals with the production of beef cattle; the dairy industry, which focuses on the production of dairy cattle, milk, and milk products; the horse industry, which produces horses for work, sport, or pleasure; the sheep and goat industry; the swine industry, which deals with the production of pigs and hogs; and the poultry industry, which is concerned with the production of commercial birds and bird products such as eggs. Those agricultural industries that deal with plants include agronomy, the production of field crops (wheat, cotton, and so on); forestry, the growth and production of trees; and horticulture. Horticulture is subdivided into pomology, the growth and production of fruit crops (oranges, apples, and so on); olericulture, the growth and production of vegetable crops (tomatoes, lettuce); landscape horticulture, the growth and production of trees and shrubs that are used in landscape design; and floriculture, the growth and production of flowering plants used in the floral industry.

The various agriculture industries produce a tremendous number of different agricultural products. Those agricultural products that are derived from plants can be subdivided into timber products (such as lumber, furniture), grain products (wheat, oats), fiber products (cotton, flax), fruit products (grapes, peaches), nut crops (pecans, hazelnuts), vegetable products (lettuce, cabbage), beverage products (tea, coffee), spice and drug crops (garlic, mustard, opium, quinine), ornamental crops (carnation, chrysanthemum), forage crops (alfalfa, clover), and other cash crops, such as sugarcane, tobacco, artichoke, and rubber.

The animal industries provide products such as red meats from cattle (beef and veal), swine (pork), sheep (lamb and mutton), and goats (chevon). Milk and milk products, also referred to as dairy products, include milk, ice cream, and cheeses. Broiler chickens provide most of the world’s poultry meat, but turkeys, roaster chickens, mature laying hens (fowl), ducks, geese, pigeons, and guinea hens are also consumed and may be more important than chickens in some parts of the world. Other than meat, poultry also provides eggs. The hair covering the skin of some farm animals is also considered an agricultural product. The two most important of these are wool from sheep and mohair from angora goats.

Impact on Other Natural Resources

While there have been tremendous increases in agricultural productivity through the use of modern agricultural practices, these same practices have had a significant impact on some other natural resources. Soil is one of the most overlooked and misunderstood resources. Most people think of soil as an inert medium from which plants grow. In reality, topsoil—that upper 15 to 25 centimeters of the Earth’s terrestrial surface in which nearly all plants grow—is a complex mixture of weathered mineral materials from rocks, partially decomposed organic molecules, and a large number of living organisms. The process of soil formation is very slow. Under ideal conditions, topsoil can form at a rate sufficient to produce a layer of about 1 millimeter thick when spread over 1 hectare per year. Under less favorable conditions, it can take thousands of years to produce this small amount of soil. With proper management, topsoil can be kept fertile and productive indefinitely. However, many agricultural techniques lead to the removal of trees and shrubs, which provide windbreaks, or to the depletion of soil fertility, which reduces the plant cover over the field. These practices have exposed the soil to increased erosion from wind and moving water, and as a result, as much as one-third of the world’s current croplands are losing topsoil faster than they can be replaced.

Because plants require water in order to grow, agriculture represents the largest single global user of water. Worldwide, about 70 percent of all fresh water withdrawn from groundwater supplies, rivers, and lakes is used to irrigate crops, and almost 15 percent of the world’s croplands are irrigated. Water usage varies among countries. Some countries have abundant water supplies and irrigate liberally, while water is scarce in other countries and must be used carefully. Because as much as 60 percent of the water intended for irrigation is lost through old pipes and canals or to evaporation before the water reaches the field, the efficiency of water use in some countries can be very low. There is no doubt that irrigation has dramatically increased crop production in many areas, but some irrigation practices have been detrimental. Overwatering can lead to a waterlogging of the soil. Waterlogging cuts off the supply of oxygen to the roots, and the plants die. Irrigation of crops in dry climates can often result in salinization of the soil. In these climates, the irrigation water rapidly evaporates from the soil, leaving behind the mineral salts that were dissolved in the water. As the salts accumulate, they become lethal to most plants. Some experts estimate that as much as one-third of the world’s agricultural soil has been damaged by salinization. There is also an argument as to whether or not the increased usage of water for agriculture has decreased the supply of potable water fit for other human uses.

Plants require sunshine, water either from rainfall or irrigation, carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and thirteen mineral nutrients from the soil. Of these, calcium, magnesium, nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium are required in the greatest amounts. Calcium and magnesium are plentiful in soils located in dry climates, but in wetter climates, these nutrients are often leached through the soil. In these regions, calcium and magnesium are returned to the soil in the form of lime, which is primarily used to raise the soil pH. Nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium are the nutrients most often depleted from agricultural soils, and these nutrients are often referred to as the fertilizer elements. Because these nutrients stimulate plant growth and usually greatly increase crop yields, it is necessary to apply them to the soil regularly in order to maintain fertility.

The amount of fertilizer applied to the soil has increased more than twentyfold in the past fifty years. While this increase in the use of fertilizers has more than tripled the worldwide crop production, it has also caused some problems. The increased production of fertilizers has required the use of energy and mineral resources that could have been used elsewhere. In many cases, farmers tend to overfertilize. Overfertilization not only wastes money but also contributes to environmental degradation. Fertilizer elements, particularly nitrogen and phosphorus, are carried away by water runoff and are eventually deposited in the rivers and lakes, where they contribute to pollution of aquatic ecosystems. In addition, nitrates can accumulate in underground water supplies. These nitrates can be harmful if ingested by newborns.

Modern agriculture, as it is practiced in the industrialized nations, consumes large amounts of energy. Farm machinery utilized in planting, cultivating, harvesting, and transporting crops to market consumes the largest supplies of liquid fossil fuels such as gasoline or diesel. The energy required to produce fertilizers, pesticides, and other agricultural chemicals is the second largest energy cost associated with agriculture. The use of fuel-requiring pumps to irrigate crops is also a major energy consumer. Additional energy is used in food processing, distribution, storage, and cooking after the crop leaves the farm. The energy used for these activities may be five times as much as that used to produce the crop.

Current Trends in Agriculture

The development of biofuels, fuels produced from plants, such as corn and soy ethanol and cellulosic ethanol (produced from inedible portions of plants), has been encouraged by the need to find a substitute for expensive and environmentally harmful fossil fuels. However, the fluctuating price of oil has caused this industry to advance in fits and starts. Critics point out that biofuels use cropland that otherwise would be producing food, and the rise of the electric car could speed the decline in the use of fossil fuels, making biofuels obsolete. The US government and private corporations have tried to address the first criticism by putting money into improving the process of distilling cellulosic ethanol, since it uses otherwise useless parts of food crops rather than requiring crops to be grown for the sole purpose of being turned into biofuels; however, producing cellulosic ethanol remains more expensive and difficult than distilling it from the edible parts of plants.

The next major development in agriculture will be the biotechnical revolution, in which scientists will be able to use molecular biological techniques to produce exotic new crop varieties. In the future, perhaps agricultural scientists will be able to use these techniques to develop crop plants that can be produced, processed, and distributed with less impact on other resources. Many scientists feel nanotechnology, the ability to restructure matter at the level of molecules and atoms, could meet the need for growth in agriculture through improving the production of both plants and animals and improving both the safety and quality of food. A wide range of developed and developing countries, from the United Kingdom to Iran to India, are providing funding to scientific laboratories to develop nanotechnology products. The potential products range from antibacterial agents to technology that signals when a product is near the end of its shelf life. There remains concern that including nanoparticles in food may pose a health risk, and consumer advocates are encouraging more research, consumer awareness, and governance.

The trend toward globalization in agriculture has been good for the developed countries, but it poses a threat to developing nations. For example, countries in Africa do not benefit from the advances in global agriculture. Rural dwellers have neither the money nor the natural resources to take advantage of modern agricultural methods. At the same time, the agricultural practices in the developed world bring with them many negative consequences for the environment. Water pollution from fertilizers and pesticides; global warming from increasing land under cultivation and decreasing forests; and decreased diversity of agricultural products in specific regions, which results in increased energy use to get these products to their global markets. Interest in organic farming, which is practiced in more than one hundred countries, offers opportunities for organic farmers from developing countries. However, if organic farming follows the pattern of commercial agriculture, with the growth of large farms, specialized products, and need for increasing capital, the benefit to the small, local farmer will disappear and the environmental impact will turn negative.

Commercial Impact of the Agriculture Industry

Worldwide, some 45 percent of the population makes a living through agriculture, both subsistence and commercial. This also includes those people hired by the agriculture chemical companies, those companies that produce or sell agriculture implements and machinery, processing and canning plants, and wholesale and retail marketing firms, such as grocery stores. There are some eight thousand different agricultural products on the market, and while agriculture is big business, it amounts to less than 5 percent of the gross domestic product of all nations. Approximately one-third of the land worldwide is used for agriculture.

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