How has agriculture become industrialized

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How does industrialization affect agriculture?

the period of industrialization resulted in massive migration of unemployed agricultural peasants and artisans from rural areas to urban regions in search of work. 3. the focus shifted from growing food crops to growing cash crops or crops that were needed as raw material for industries. Continue Reading…

What are the pros and cons of industrial agriculture?

What Are the Pros of Factory Farming?

1. It keeps prices down for consumers. Factory farming allows for livestock products to be produce on a large economic scale. …
2. It allows automation to help provide food resources. In the past, farming meant an intense amount of daily manual labor to produce a crop. …
3. It improves production efficiencies. …

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How did industrialization impact farmers?

How did industrialization impact farmers during the Gilded Age? The machines were expensive to buy, which helped cause some of the debt the farmers faced. However, the machines allowed for more crops to be grown and harvested, which led to an oversupply of crops. This caused crop prices to drop, which squeezed the farmers financially. ]

What are the impacts of industrial agriculture?

Industrial agriculture produces numerous negative environmental impacts. Pasture land for grazing cattle and other domesticated animals is destroying ecosystems. Thousands of acres in the Amazon rainforest in Brazil, home to numerous Indigenous nations and referred to as the lungs of the planet, are being burned and cleared to make way for cows …

Why did the agricultural revolution happen?

In order for farmers to benefit from excess food production, they had to get their crops to market, so the agricultural revolution became an impetus for the development of roads, bridges, tunnels, and canals. The rapid growth of railroads was also strongly driven by the need to get a valuable, perishable product to consumers. To manage this market, commodities exchanges were created. The Chicago Board of Trade was established in 1848.

How did agriculture change in the 1700s?

Agricultural technology changed more dramatically in the 1700s than at any time since the introduction of draft animals millennia before. Mechanized planting and threshing made farms more efficient, threw workers off the farm, and altered the very shape of the countryside. Scientific approaches were applied to agriculture, and books helped spread new ideas and approaches. At the end of the century, cotton became a force for change: Whitney’s gin made cotton profitable for the first time in the American South and helped support the continuation of slavery. Off the farm cotton mills led the way in industrialization. Farm mechanization made food supplies more stable and more plentiful, supporting a surge in population and leading to unprecedented growth in cities.

How did enclosure systems affect agriculture?

By contrast the enclosure system developed in the Low Countries, transformed farming into an efficient, pseudo-industrial endeavor. When plots of land were allocated to specific owners, the profitability of each tract became the responsibility of its farmer. This encouraged mechanization, reduced labor costs, and encouraged innovation. For the large landowners, who had sponsored enclosure laws, the result was an industrialization of farming, more arable land, and exceptionally high agricultural productivity. For smaller landowners, privatization was a disaster; farmers could no longer distribute risk or share resources, and they were even held responsible for the costs of fencing. Still, the overall effect was more food from less labor.

What were the three inventions that led to the Industrial Revolution?

In the eighteenth century, the world witnessed a revolution in agriculture led by three inventions—the seed drill, the threshing machine, and the cotton gin. Complementing these new tools were new ideas, set forth in books. The agricultural revolution paved the way for the Industrial Revolution, both by showing how the new ideas of science could be put to practical use and by freeing the manpower needed for factories.

What were the major developments in farming in the 1700s?

There were many other important developments in farming in the 1700s: Charles Newbold invented a cast-iron plow that could dig more deeply into the soil in 1797. Joseph Boyce developed an early reaper (1799). New crops were introduced, and Viscount Charles Townsend helped end the practice of letting fields lie fallow by showing that rotating soil-enriching crops, such as turnips and clover, with traditional crops kept the soil fertile. This put 50% more land into use and increased the supply of available cattle feed.

How did farmers benefit from the prize offered by Napoleon?

Here they benefited from a prize offered by Napoleon in 1794 for a practical means of food preservation. In 1810, Nicolas Appert (1750-1841) invented canning. With a way to preserve their products indefinitely and deliver them to ever more remote destinations, markets once again expanded for farmers.

What is open field farming?

Open-field farming was a communal activity. The land around a village was divided into rectangular plots called furlongs. Strips of about a morning’s plowing were distributed within each furlong. This arrangement encouraged sharing of work and draft animals, and distributed good and poor soil equally among all the farmers. The open-field system also spread the ongoing burden of allowing one-third of the land to regenerate each year by lying fallow. Pasture and woodlands were held in common, so everyone was able to hunt, graze animals, and gather wood. The poor were granted the right of gleaning—they could go through fields after harvest and pick up any grain that had been left.

What is industrial agriculture?

Industrial agriculture is the large-scale, intensive production of crops and animals, often involving chemical fertilizers on crops or the routine , harmful use of antibiotics in animals (as a way to compensate for filthy conditions, even when the animals are not sick). It may also involve crops that are genetically modified, …

Why do industrial farms use antibiotics?

Industrial farms overuse antibiotics, feeding large amounts of the drugs—often the same ones used to treat human illnesses—to healthy animals to help them survive in crowded, dirty CAFOs. Low-level exposure to antibiotics creates the perfect breeding ground for superbugs, those pathogens that antibiotics can’t kill.

Why is monoculture bad for the soil?

Monoculture also renders the soil prone to rapid erosion, since the practice leaves the soil bare outside of the crop’s growing season. Perhaps more problematically, repeatedly planting the same crop invites pests that prey on a certain plant to wait around the same spot for their favorite food to return.

What are conventional farmers left to do to avoid pests?

What are conventional farmers left to do to avoid pests? Apply pesticides. That’s why monoculture and genetic modification tend to go hand in hand. Planting pesticide-tolerant GMO crops enables farmers to blanket the landscape with chemicals without damaging their corn or soy. (Speaking of corn and soy, many U.S. farmers rotate their fields back and forth between those two crops, leading to a duoculture that’s only slightly less damaging to the soil than a monoculture.)

How do giant farms affect the environment?

Giant farms—whether growing crops or animals—often rely heavily on chemicals and produce waste that pollutes the water and air. As a result, the system we’ve designed to feed the planet also takes a serious toll on its health.

How is genetic modification done?

Modern genetic modification is done in laboratories. Scientists start by identifying candidate genes for desired traits, like resistance to drought or heat. The gene doesn’t have to come from a plant. Researchers can implant a gene from a fungus, bacterium, or animal.

What is a factory farm?

The term “factory farm” is commonly used to refer to large, industrialized facilities raising animals for food, but it isn’t a legal or scientific term. The official name for these facilities is concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs.

How has industrialization affected agriculture?

However, on the other hand, the industrialization of agriculture has wreaked havoc on the natural resources; depleting the soil of nutrients and destroyed water reservoirs & marine animals. While it is certainly efficient to continue feeding the growing population of the world, it’s inherently unsustainable and brings more damage to the environment.

Why is industrial agriculture important?

The crops grown using industrial agriculture is meant to feed the masses and ensure food security across the world. The use of chemicals, mechanized tools, and other advanced technology are some of the reasons why industrial agriculture is able to produce massive quantities of food from farms.

Why are industrial farms better than traditional farms?

Apart from increasing the crop yield, large industrialized farms are also better suited to lower the cost of production, making food more accessible for the masses even at the lower income levels. The use of modern machinery and technology for various agriculture processes makes industrial farming more cost-effective for farmers, which in turn lowers the overall cost of the produce for the end consumers.

What is industrial agriculture?

In this type of agriculture, the focus is mainly on maximizing the yield of fewer types of crops for more sales and greater profits, instead of diversification of the crops. The crops grown using industrial agriculture is meant to feed the masses and ensure food security across the world.

How does subsistence farming work?

Subsistence agriculture is heavily dependent on manual labor with all the harvesting and cultivation activities being done by humans or animals using simple hand tools to work the lands. This type of agriculture also doesn’t use chemical fertilizers or pesticides, rather age-old proven natural techniques are used to deal with the fertility of infestation problems. Most of the farmers practicing subsistence agriculture also have poultry, and livestock, manure from which is used as natural fertilizers for the crops. The crop yield is primarily used to meet the family food requirement, as well as, to feed the livestock. Any surplus food is then supplied to local families or in the local market.

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Why are large industrial farms better suited than traditional small to medium farms?

Large industrial farms are better suited than traditional small to medium farms for mechanized agriculture practices, which directly results in higher yields of crops, which has been the basic driving purpose of the industrialization efforts since the 1950s, to ensure food security of a rapidly growing global population.

How did agriculture contribute to the Industrial Revolution?

Industrial agriculture arose hand in hand with the Industrial Revolution in general. The identification of nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus (referred to by the acronym NPK) as critical factors in plant growth led to the manufacture of synthetic fertilizers, making possible more intensive types of agriculture. The discovery of vitamins and their role in animal nutrition, in the first two decades of the 20th century, led to vitamin supplements, which in the 1920s allowed certain livestock to be raised indoors, reducing their exposure to adverse natural elements. The discovery of antibiotics and vaccines facilitated raising livestock in concentrated, controlled animal feed operations by reducing diseases caused by crowding. Chemicals developed for use in World War II gave rise to synthetic pesticides. Developments in shipping networks and technology have made long-distance distribution of agricultural produce feasible.

What is industrial agriculture?

v. t. e. Industrial agriculture is a form of modern farming that refers to the industrialized production of crops and animals and animal products like eggs or milk. The methods of industrial agriculture include innovation in agricultural machinery and farming methods, genetic technology, techniques for achieving economies …

What is organic farming?

Organic farming methods combine some aspects of scientific knowledge and highly limited modern technology with traditional farming practices; accepting some of the methods of industrial agriculture while rejecting others. Organic methods rely on naturally occurring biological processes, which often take place over extended periods of time, and a holistic approach; while chemical-based farming focuses on immediate, isolated effects and reductionist strategies.

What are the three main goals of sustainable agriculture?

Sustainable agriculture integrates three main goals: environmental stewardship, farm profitability , and prosperous farming communities .

What are the economic liabilities of industrial agriculture?

Economic liabilities for industrial agriculture include the dependence on finite non-renewable fossil fuel energy resources, as an input in farm mechanization (equipment, machinery), for food processing and transportation, and as an input in agricultural chemicals.

What are the challenges and issues of industrial agriculture?

The challenges and issues of industrial agriculture for global and local society, for the industrial agriculture sector, for the individual industrial agriculture farm, and for animal rights include the costs and benefits of both current practices and proposed changes to those practices.

How does agriculture affect the environment?

Industrial agriculture uses huge amounts of water, energy, and industrial chemicals; increasing pollution in the arable land, usable water and atmosphere. Herbicides, insecticides, fertilizers, and animal waste products are accumulating in ground and surface waters.

How has industrial agriculture helped the world?

Industrial agriculture has had great success in producing abundant, low-cost food. World hunger has been declining for decades, and food production per capita has increased sharply since the 1960s. But this success has come with costs that raise questions about the sustainability and the unintended effects of the global “rationalization” …

What is industrial agriculture?

Industrial agriculture is all about controlling nature, curating the land for human use, and choosing which plants are valuable. Although much of biodiversity loss is a secondary result of farming techniques (think: habitat loss or unintended chemical runoff), plants are often eradicated on purpose (think: weeds).

How are food systems dependent on fossil fuels?

Industrial agriculture and food systems are largely dependent on fossil fuels for the production of food by way of machinery and mechanization, agrichemicals, transportation, food processing, food packaging, assimilating waste, etc . (Shiva et al., 2017; Neff et al., 2011 ). In the United States, fossil fuel and the energy used by the food system is substantial ( Canning et al., 2017 ). The energy used for food accounted for over half of the total increased energy use in the United States between 1997 and 2002 ( Canning et al., 2017 ). In an era where oil reserves will dip and extracting new resources is not only expensive but also has a detrimental impact on the natural environment, reducing energy use by food systems is imperative ( Neff et al., 2011 ).

What is genetic engineering?

Genetic engineering techniques have been introduced to create proprietary plant cultivars with desirable new characteristics. However, it is not clear that this new technology can substantially reduce industrial agriculture’s negative ecological impacts or solve its pressing problems of economic viability.

How have individuals and groups responded to industrial agriculture?

Individuals and groups have responded to industrial agriculture by using their purchasing power to support sources of locally grown food. One manifestation is ‘community-supported agriculture’ (CSA), in which individuals purchase ‘shares’ in a particular farm’s annual crop.

How does industrial agriculture affect the environment?

Side effects of industrial agriculture include soil erosion, water pollution from inorganic fertilizer and pesticides, simplification of ecosystems, consolidation of small farms into large ones, and shipment of food over long distances requiring both energy and time. Individuals and groups have responded to industrial agriculture by using their purchasing power to support sources of locally grown food. One manifestation is ‘community-supported agriculture’ (CSA), in which individuals purchase ‘shares’ in a particular farm’s annual crop. Each week during the growing season, each shareholder is entitled to a basket of produce from the CSA farm they support. Groups like the Food Trust (Philadelphia, Pa.) have pioneered CSAs and other innovations include local farmers’ markets, urban community gardens and farms, schoolyard gardens, and farm-to-school and farm-to-campus programs that provide students with locally grown food while offering local farms a reliable market for their crops. Despite the great wealth of the United States, hunger and malnutrition remain widespread. Groups such as the National Food Security Coalition (Portland, Ore.) are developing food security coalitions and food policy councils around the country, aiming to make sure everyone has access to reasonably priced local food, particularly in areas considered, ‘food deserts’ where there are few or no grocery stores. Local organizations such as the Food Project (Lincoln, Mass.) and Isles (Trenton, N.J.) bring healthy, locally grown food into low-income communities by training and engaging young people in techniques of sustainable agriculture. Around the country, other groups such as Appalachian Center for Economic Networks (Athens, Ohio) are providing commercial-scale kitchens and business incubators to spur locally based food businesses that rely on locally grown food.

What is the goal of organic farming?

As time passed, the organic farming movement shifted into a ‘sustainable agriculture’ movement with three goals: farming practices compatible with natural systems, using organic fertilizers and few or no chemical pesticides; achieving food security, emphasizing locally grown foods; and maintaining rural economies that could sustain, and be sustained by, relatively small-scale farms.

Why did people start farming?

In the Near East, for example, it’s thought that climatic changes at the end of the last ice age brought seasonal conditions that favored annual plants like wild cereals. Elsewhere, such as in East Asia, increased pressure on natural food resources may have forced people to find homegrown solutions. But whatever the reasons for its independent origins, farming sowed the seeds for the modern age.

What was the farming revolution?

Taking root around 12,000 years ago, agriculture triggered such a change in society and the way in which people lived that its development has been dubbed the ” Neolithic Revolution.”. Traditional hunter-gatherer lifestyles, followed by humans since their evolution, were swept aside in favor of permanent settlements …

What mutation occurred during the spread of farming into southeastern Europe?

But at some point during the spread of farming into southeastern Europe, a mutation occurred for lactose tolerance that increased in frequency through natural selection thanks to the nourishing benefits of milk.

Where did wheat come from?

The wild progenitors of crops including wheat, barley and peas are traced to the Near East region. Cereals were grown in Syria as long as 9,000 years ago, while figs were cultivated even earlier; prehistoric seedless fruits discovered in the Jordan Valley suggest fig trees were being planted some 11,300 years ago.

How long ago did goats come to Europe?

Dates for the domestication of these animals range from between 13,000 to 10,000 years ago. Genetic studies show that goats and other livestock accompanied the westward spread of agriculture into Europe, helping to revolutionize Stone Age society. While the extent to which farmers themselves migrated west remains a subject of debate, …

How long does a plant live?

plant with a life cycle of no more than one year, and often much less.

When did rice and millet farming start?

The origins of rice and millet farming date to around 6,000 B.C.E.

What were the benefits of the inventions of the agricultural era?

The benefits of these inventions included a greater surplus of food due to efficient processes (for example, a plow pulled by animals could cover far greater areas of land than one operated by a human).

How did the Industrial Revolution affect the economy?

The Industrial Revolution brought about a rapid and significant change in the economy due to the introduction of power-driven machinery and other energy sources. Societies developed from agricultural to industrial rapidly. Work that was previously done by individuals was now being performed in centralized settings in cities with large factories and on equipment capable of producing massive amounts of products quickly. The steam engines, textile mills, and other large-scale equipment are products of this era.

Why is the postindustrial society decentralized?

In the postindustrial society, we see a shift from products to ideas and knowledge, from hands-on skills to literacy skills, and the decentralization of the workforce because work is not centralized around city factories. The shift in the economy is most obvious in its workforce.

What are the three sectors of the modern economy?

We will also discuss the three sectors of a modern economy: primary, secondary, and tertiary.

What were the negative effects of the Industrial Revolution?

The Industrial Revolution allowed for faster and larger production of goods and more diverse populations, but also led to negative factors, including: 1 Overcrowding in cities due to the large number of people moving to urban settings to be closer to factories. 2 Skilled workers were replaced with low-skilled workers who left agricultural work. The low-skilled workers were underpaid and overworked. 3 The inequality gap between the rich and the poor established in the Agricultural Age persisted and widened in the Industrial Age as the rich continued to stockpile and control resources while the poor faced overcrowded and poverty-ridden situations.

What was the inequality gap between the rich and the poor in the Industrial Age?

The inequality gap between the rich and the poor established in the Agricultural Age persisted and widened in the Industrial Age as the rich continued to stockpile and control resources while the poor faced overcrowded and poverty-ridden situations.

What is the evolution of the economy?

The economy has undergone an evolution from one reliant on agricultural resources to one that is based on information, knowledge, and services.

Background

In the early 1900s, more than half of Americans were either farmers or lived in rural communities.1 Most U.S. farms were diversified, meaning they produced a variety of crops and animal species together on the same farm, in complementary ways.2Farmers were skilled in a wide range of trades and had autonomy over ho…

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Specialization

Mechanization

Consolidation

Market Concentration

Resources

References

Overview

Historical development and future prospects

• In the eighteenth century, the world witnessed a revolution in agriculture led by three inventions—the seed drill, the threshing machine, and the cotton gin. Complementing these new tools were new ideas, set forth in books. The agricultural revolution paved the way for the Industrial Revolution, both by showing how the new ideas of science could be…

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Challenges and issues

Animals

Crops

Industrial agriculture is a form of modern farming that refers to the industrialized production of crops and animals and animal products like eggs or milk. The methods of industrial agriculture include innovation in agricultural machinery and farming methods, genetic technology, techniques for achieving economies of scale in production, the creation of new markets for consumption, the applicati…

Sustainable agriculture