How Has Farming Changed Over The Last 100 Years

Farming has changed dramatically in the past 100 years. There are many ways farming has changed, but in these few pages we will focus on these four main points: life on the farm, equipment, crops and distribution of products. Farming still involves a great deal of hard work, but it is certainly not as labor intensive as it once was. The life of a farming family is also quite different. Back then the work involved back breaking manual labor because tractors and other elaborate equipment were just becoming available. Now days, there are many types of tractors and other high tech farm equipment to help with the heavy labor. The number of types of crops a farmer grows has decreased, while the average number of acres per farm has increased over

The physical labor, although still hard is definitely not as labor intensive. For instance, now a farmer could just hop in his tractor to plow a field and could plow a large chunk of the field in one day, whereas in the beginning of the 1900s the farmer, if he couldn’t afford a tractor, would spend several days to plow the same amount of land each time hooking his horses or oxen to a plow. Also the farmer’s animals are a lot less tired and ready to do other things, like if the farmer wants to go for a trail ride. Over the past century 5 million tractors have taken the work place of horses and oxen. Because of increased technology, each farmer is able to take care of a lot more land. Another big change has to do with the number of Americans who farm for a living. From the 1900s to the early 2000s farm economy has gone from 41% to 1.9% of all work forces in farming and agriculture. The farmer of today has most likely gone to college and earned a degree. They need to possess technical knowledge, business and computer skills and also need to have a great understanding about economics of farming. Unlike one hundred years ago, the farmer’s children’s education takes priority over farm work. These children most likely go to public schools in bigger towns and cities and go on to college. Many farmers and their wives have jobs that are unrelated to the farm. Some farmers live on the farm, but others live in towns and

In fact, at the beginning of the 1900s there were 21.6 million work animals in the United States. Now there are about 3 million animals used in the farming industry for labor. The first gas powered tractor was invented in 1890, but tractors weren’t commonly used until 1945. Horses were the main work animal. Two horses could pull a 12 inch plow with the farmer walking beside it and guiding it while another rode and steered it. If the driver was skilled he could plow about ten inches of ground. To plow a whole field would take days, depending on how big the field was. Horses would also pull other equipment such as the hay rake, mower or seed drill. The farmers harvested by hand. By late 1960, hand harvesting was replaced with mechanical harvesting and by 1970 tractors had practically replaced all animals. Now farmers are using sensors to measure water, weeds and nutrients in the soil and G.P.S.s (Global Positioning Systems) to guide tractors, map and level fields and sow seeds and fertilize with great precision. The use of these specialized tools makes farm production significantly more efficient. By the end of the 1900s, farmers were all using gas powered tractors, mowers, balers, combines, and other high-tech equipment, changing the overall effectiveness of farming