Around the globe, cotton belongs to the one of the most important crops. Approximately, 130 nations manufactured cotton during 2000, and it is projected that the crop was planted on 2.5 percent of the globe’s arable land zone, enabling it to become one of the most crucial in terms of land use after food grains and soybeans. In developing nations, like the United States, it accounts for approximately three percent of the total crop area.
Cotton is manufactured for different reasons such as meeting people's basic wants and needs, distributing to achieve foreign exchange, or manufacturing textiles for exports. Cotton is a good cash resource for millions of farmers. Moreover, around 70 countries compete in producing cotton, and the top three countries in producing cotton are the United State, China, and Britain.
Furthermore, cotton is a huge traded agricultural product. Approximately 170 nations were engaged in the export or import of cotton. By the export of textiles, cotton increases countries economic growth. Producing cotton requires a body of labors when there is a demand. In addition technology innovations increased productivity which lowered cotton prices and increased demand for cotton. Moreover, the United states is the largest cotton exporter, thanks to the economic system which provides incentives to the United States labor. Therefore, the economic system is the most important factor in increasing cotton production. In addition, the four factors that helped the cotton industry in the United States to achieve economic success are labor, technology, Lubbock city, and the economic system.
Cotton and Labor
In 1973, the discovery of the cotton gin machine by Eli Whitney helped farmers to separate cotton from its ...
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The south, which was mostly agricultural, depended on the production of cotton. It was very important to their economy. Before Eli Whitney’s Cotton Gin was used throughout the south, the United States produced about 750,000 bales of hay in 1830 (How the Cotton Gin). By 1850 it had increased to 2.85 billion bales of hay (How the Cotton Gin). Most of this was in the south because it had the weather conditions needed for cotton to grow. In 1793 Whitney saw the difficulty of taking out cotton seeds by hand (Cefrey 10-11). He decided to create a machine that could clean cotton faster than a human could. The Cotton Gin made the processing of cotton much faster and quicker. As a result of this, land owners were now able to have large cotton plantations across the south (How the Cotton Gin). Southerners were becoming wealthy very fast because of the cotton gin. Eli Whitney’s invention of the Cotton Gin made cotton the South’s main crop making more slave labor needed and political tensions rise.
Currently, the United States is the largest producer of corn in the world. In 2010, it produced 32% of the world’s corn crop. Corn is grown on approximately 400,000 U.S. farms, showing the importance of corn in the United States’ diets. Twenty percent of the corn produced is exported and corn grown for grain accounts for almost one quarter of the harvested crop acres in this country (National Corn Grower's Associatio...
Secondly, the demand for cotton grew tremendously as cotton became an important raw material for the then developing cotton industries in the North and Britain. The growing of cotton revived the Southern economy and the plantations spread across the south, and by 1850 the southern U.S produced more than 80% of cotton all over the world. As this cotton based economy of the south grew so did the slave labor to work in these large scale plantations since they were more labor-intensive...
Gross, Terry. “Lincoln’s Evolving Thoughts on Slavery, and Freedom.” eLibrary. Proquest LLC, n.d. Web. 21 Feb. 2014.
By 1791, they were already producing 2 millions of pounds of cotton that made British textile industry to have a vast appetite for cotton corp. That made the North and South profit from growing cotton. That made southern states grew from eight states too fifteen states. The population in the south grew more than five times. The growing demand for cotton sustained this expansion. Between 1830-1860 world demand for cotton consumption had increases by 5% per year. Cotton expert helped balance the country international trade and finances, to maximize profits the southerners farmers are planters import the food from the northwest and pushed for utilized vast land to grew cotton.
In the beginning of the 1800s, economic diversities between the two different regions had also grown. By the year 1860, cotton was the chief crop for the South; it also represented fifty-seven percent of all American exports. The prosperity of cotton fulfilled the South's reliance on the plantation system and its crucial elementslavery.
Abraham Lincoln, Letter to Salmon P. Chase (September 2, 1863), in Abraham Lincoln, Slavery, and the Civil war, Ed. Michael P. Johnson (Boston: Bedford Books, 2011)
The invention of the cotton gin made cotton very profitable in the South. The South depended on cotton,and soon became an on...
Selling corn in massive quantity can lead to a greater profit. An ear of corn may averages about eight-hundred kernels in sixteen rows and a pound of corn consists of approximately 1,300 kernels. One-hundred bushels of corn makes approximately 7,280,000 kernels. Every year, a single U.S. Farmer may provides food and fiber for 129 people in the U.S. and 32 overseas. In the U.S., corn production is 2 times that of any other crop. Over 55% of Iowa’s corn goes to foreign markets and the rest is used in other parts of the United States of America.
By implementing new farming techniques provided with the new technological advances in machines we can see abundant harvest in even the poorest third world countries. For example, the Green Revolution has already showed admirable progress in the northern part of India ever since it took start in 1950. By 1997, northern India increased its grain production by 37 percent. This has proven that traditional farming methods are being rendered obsolete. And because by the year 2000, there will be half the land per person in developing countries as there was in 1970, we need to apply ultra-efficient methods to sustain the growing need. Not only does the Green Revolution enhances food output, it also preserves the environment.
Cotton had first become popular in England mainly because it was cooler and more comfortable than wool, plus it could be dyed in many colors and patterns. However, English manufacturers had to battle the Indian cotton textiles, which were much cheaper. Therefore, the British government enacted protectionist tariff and barriers against Indian cotton that allowed the infant British textile industry to grow and nourish. The United States did the same thing to grow its own textile industry in the northeastern part of the country. The U.S. government enacted tariffs to protect its infant industry against British textile imports, the textile industry sparked the Industrial Revolution in the U.S..
With the increase in cotton production, came the increase in slave labor, which was used to harvest the cotton crop, making each slave an increasingly valuable asset. Westward migration was also seen as cotton spread throughout western land like a wildfire. Almost immediately, cotton was transformed into a major export. ?Cotton exports averaged about $9 million annually from 1803 to 1807, about 22 percent of the value of all exports, from 1815 to 1819, they averaged over $23 million, or 39 percent of the total, and from the mid-1830s to 1860, they accounted for more than half the value of all exports in the nation.? (Tindall and Shi, 418)