AGRICULTURE TODAY: FEEDING THE WORLD
Agriculture has been the backbone of America since colonial times. But agriculture has changed enormously in the past 50 years. Read on to find out what modern agriculture is all about!
Who are Americas Farmers?
Nearly 7 million U.S. farms produced food and fiber for the world just 60 years ago. Now only 2.1 million farms remain. 89% of U.S. farms are family farms. Farmers are aging; 32% of U.S. farmers are over 65, compared to 15% in 1978. Farmers are only 0.86% of the U.S. population. Only 1.47 million (0.6%) are full- time farmers. The remainder supplement their income from off- farm sources.
Who is Involved in Agriculture besides Farmers?
Agriculture employs 21 million Americans. Thats 1 out of every 6 U.S. jobs, or 18.5% of the U.S. work force!
- 50% wholesale
- 20% production
- 15% marketing/processing
- 12% agribusiness
- 3% supplies
These people ensure that a wide variety of foods are available all year round. They work to keep food safe, nutritious, and affordable. Because of all these peoples efforts, Americans are healthier and live longer. In 1900, the average live expectancy of an American was just 47 years. Now it is 75 years because of better medical care and safe, abundant food.
Much has changed in Agriculture over the years. We've quickly gone from horse-drawn plows to satellite-linked tractors and combines; from party-line telephone systems to cellular technology. This has vastly increased productivity. One farmer fed 25 people in 1960; in 1999 each farmer fed 129 people (97 Americans and 32 people of other nations). This productivity is urgently needed to cope with the current population explosion. The world's population is expected to double to 11 billion by the year 2050, which will require each farmer to be twice as productive as at present.
Where will food be grown in 2050?
Our 2.14 million farmers will have less available farmland in 2050. About 2 million acres of prime farmland are converted each year to other purposes. Areas most at risk include California's Central Valley, southern Florida, western Michigan, and upstate New York. At present farmland loss rates, only 0.49 acres per person of farmland will remain in 2025, and a paltry 0.37 acres per person in the year 2050.
We have doubled world food production since 1960--without a substantial increase in cropland planted globally. Without high-yield agriculture, the world would lose 15 million acres of wildlife habitat in order to feed the world in 2050. -- Dennis Avery, director of the Center for Global Food Issues, Hudson Institute
Acknowledgements
Thanks are expressed to U.S.D.A statistics and the American Farm Bureau's Ag Ambassador program for Extension Agents for information used in this article.
Lara Worden , Area Specialized Agent
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