Industrialized Farming

80% of our food sales in the United States come from large farms even though they make up less than 8% of farms. Industrial farming is something that is relatively new. In the early 1900's the number of farms was around 5,740,000 farms with an average of 147 acres per farm and making up abour 38% of the American workforce at the time. By the late 1980's the number of farms was down to 2,143,150 farms averaging 461 acres per farm and now only making up 2.6% of America's workforce. The number of farms decreasing and the acreage per farm increasing is where we start to see where industrial farming started becoming a thing. Industrial farms are efficient is getting product  produced and distributed.

The vast markets that large farms have enables them to be able to produce more product faster than small farms. These larges farms have over $1,000,000 in their sales but only make up 4% of farms but it is 66% of all agriculture sales. These farms supply markets that a way bigger than they are which in turns gives them awful profits. In 2012 high records were reached when producers were selling $394.6 billion dollars worth of product but it cost them $328.9 billion dollars to produce those products. Industrial farms have great efficiancy which is why they are able to produce more and sell more to much larger markets.

Products on these large farms are produced differently than they way they are produced on the smaller farms. Industrial farms have better and faster equipment enabling them to cover more land faster thus producing more crops. In the early 1900's there was experiomental work done on crops to create hybrid plants that would be disease resistant, improving yeild and quality. By 1960 96% of of corn that was planted by the large farms was coming from hybrid plants. The crops produced by large farms is what is turned into the food we eat everyday like ceral, oatmeal, breads, and so on. Tom Vilsack, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture once said, "Large farms produce the vast majority of the nation's food."

The advancements that  have been made with technology is why these large farms are as efficiant as they are. Farming used to be done with your own two hands and if you were lucky you may have had horse drawn equipment. Now we have computerized farm equipment that can run themselves, no one realizes how amazing and important this is to farming. Horse drawn equipment didn't come out until the late 1800's and the first opened geared tractor didn't come around till about 1910. Technology advancements have greatly increased the productivity in crop production and the keeping of livestock. Tim Griffin once said "As the farms get larger it's easer to invest in labor saving machinery, technology and specialized managment, and the production cost per unit goes down." Technological advancements dont' just deal with field equipment it also deals with equipment used to take care of livestock, mostly in the cattle industries. To see the way cows are being taken care of now is amazing. It went from the farmer's own two hands to now some farms even having robots take care of the animals. Technological advancements don't just deal with equipment either though; it also deals with scientific matters like how we can genetically modify crops to "immunize" them against pests and diseases. Crop production is now twice was in was 50 years ago because of the advancements that have been made and we are also using nearly half the labor we were and roughfully 16% less land.

Industrial farms have proven themselves over and over again on how they can be highly efficient. The advancments in technology have aided us in being able to produce more crops faster and get them to larger broader markets. If we didn't have these large farms who knows where America would be because of just how much the people demand and how fast the want it. Without the rising of the large farms America's people wouldn't have lasted this long.

Small Scale Farming

For some people their way of life consists of being able to walk outside in the morning and being able to hear the noises of farm animals and being able to pull fresh vegatables from their gardens. Our country was founded upon these smaller sized farms. Small farms come in the types of hobby farms and mid-sized farms. Hobby farms are pretty common in America, these are the farms run by the people who love the fact that they can grow their own food but can't do it for a living because there is no way they will make enough money for their family to live on. Mid-sized farms are still relitively common throughout the United States although we are starting to see less and less of them. These mid-sized farms are seen mostly producing dairy or beef products. A mid-sized dairy farm will normally milk between 100-400 cows. Beef operations are another common mid-sized farm but are mostly only seen in the mid-western United States. There are also sub-types to these farms. You have your commercially run farm which means your cows are going to be kept in the barns most of the time and the food will be brought to them and they are going to produce a lot more than normal. You also have you organic farms which means they only use organic products with their animals, organic feed, organic pesticides and so on. Then you have your grass-fed farms which means what it says, the cows only eat grass and thats it, no grain, no corn, just grass. You will also see that a lot of your grass-fed farms also tend to be organic as well. Small farms are highly important in our culture for each individual person.

The english settlers of the early 18th century are the ones who started agriculture in America. Without farming Ameica would've crumbled. Most of the farms we see today are generational farms meaning they have been passed down through the family for at least two generations but most times many more. Hired help wasn't always a thing becasuse of it being a family run farm they either didn't want the help or didn't have the money to hire help. But if they did need the help most times it'd be seasonal help, either meaning they would only be working about 9 months of the year or only during planting and harvest seasons.

The children that grew up on family farms were also taught very valuable life skills and foundational morals. These families were good character-driven because of all that farming had taught them. Those children had great mental devoplment because of all the different stimuli they were exposed to.

Farmer's markets narrow the divide that occurs between people and the places where local food is produced. Eating locally has many many benfits. One huge benefit is that it supports the local farms and they need that support. Another is that it helps to keep you healtheir by not eating processed foods or crops full of pesticides. Knowing where your food comes from and knowing that it's fresh is a really good feeling, you automatically know it's better. Eating organic can also be a bigger step in eating better and locally. Organic farms don't use harmful pesticides and they're animals are most of the time also grass-fed because of the USDA pasture rule. The USDA pasture rule means that any organic ruminant animal, animals with fou compartements in their stomach to help break down food, must have access to grass during grazing season. Another benefit to eating locally is that you can interact with those who are producing your food, you can know exactly what is going on with the animal in which you are eating.

The benefits that are given to us by small farms are really important. They help to keep families in touch with one another by forcing them to work together to get a job done. Eating locally helps keep these small farms going for generations to come and in hope that with these farms continuing the average age of the farmer will be younger than it is now which is around 58 years old. These farmers aren't going to last much longer without our help. Eating locally can also help to improve our health. Each persons support is needed to keep these farms going. 

A Legacy Worth Keeping

Easy or not easy, farming is a lifestyle. As the farming industry has grown, farming has changed dramatically from what it once was. What was once a family affair has now become a commercial business. With an economy as demanding as America's small farming is becoming a thing of the past and large commercial farms are becoming the new norm.

Smaller family operated farms are becoming harder and harder to find. Nearly 80 years ago at its peek, farming was everywhere. There were nearly 7 million farms across America, each around 170 acres. 75 years after that, through the decline of farming, the number of farms dropped by nearly 4 million and more than doubling the acres per farm.

Small and large farms operate very differently. A small farm these days milks only a few hundred cows and only grow enough crops to suffice what they need for themselves and to sell and little bit. A typical large commercial farm milks a few thousand cows and grow more than enough crops to suffice themselves and to sell plenty to companies. Some may ask, how do they possibly milk all these cows? The operations work essentially the same. Machines. The types vary but they all work the same whether they use the tie stall method, parlors, carousels, or robots.

Another thing small farms are lacking that the large farms have is help and the means of being able to continue. When the age of a typical small family farmer is about 55, he's not going to be continuing for much longer which means if no one is there to take over the farm he is going to have to sell. In this economy that's what's happening to most small farms. There is no one to pass along the farms to because the kids had to go out and find new jobs to be able to keep their families alive. Large farms have the ability hire people to help run their growing farms. Because these farms are being run like large business operations they have the means of being able to continue.

When farming was a family tradition, farmers were able to teach their kids valuable lie skills they probably couldn't learn anywhere else. They taught their kids the value of a hard work ethic and how it will help them everywhere they go. Farmers also taught them the value of persistence, responsibility, looking toward the future with an open mind, to love without fear and that nothing ever comes easy. As a farm kid you also learn the value of a dollar and how that money isn't everything.

The farming industry has changed drastically from what it once was. There isn't a whole lot that we can do to stop that from happening. Small farms are going to keep disappearing and large farms are going to keep growing. Things are going to be different; we have to figure out whether it is a good thing or not, whether we can survive knowing what once was is now gone.