Agriculture of the USA

 

Note alfalfa and hay are not tracked by the FAO and the production of tobacco in the United States has fallen 60% between 1997 and 2003.

Yield

U.S. agriculture has a high yield relative to other countries. As of 2004:

• Corn for grain, average of 160.4 bushels harvested per acre (10.07 t/ha)

• Soybean for beans, average of 42.5 bushels harvested per acre (2.86 t/ha)

• Wheat, average of 43.2 bushels harvested per acre (2.91 t/ha, was 44.2 bu/ac or 2.97 t/ha in 2003)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2.2Livestock

U.S. livestock and poultry inventory

Type	1997	2002	2007	2012
Cattle and calves	99907017	95,497,994	96347858	89994614
Hogs and pigs	61188149	60405103	67786318	66026785
Sheep and lambs	8083457	6341799	5819162	5364844
Broilers & other meat chickens	1214446356	1389279047	1602574592	1506276846
Laying hens	314144304	334435155	349772558	350715978

Goats, horses, turkeys and bees are also raised, though in lesser quantities. Inventory data is not as readily available as for the major industries. For the three major goat-producing states—Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas—there were 1.2 million goats at the end of 2002. There were 5.3 million horses in the United States at the end of 1998. There were 2.5 million colonies of bees at the end of 2002.

2.3Agriculture safety and health

Agriculture ranks among the most hazardous industries due to the use of chemicals and risk of injury. Farmers are at high risk for fatal and nonfatal injuries (general traumatic injury and musculoskeletal injury), work-related lung diseases, noise-induced hearing loss, skin diseases, chemical-related illnesses, and certain cancers associated with chemical use and prolonged sun exposure. In an average year, 516 workers die doing farm work in the U.S. (1992–2005). Every day, about 243 agricultural workers suffer lost-work-time injuries, and about 5% of these result in permanent impairment. Tractor overturns are the leading cause of agriculture-related fatal injuries, and account for over 90 deaths every year. The National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health recommends the use of roll over protection structures on tractors to reduce the risk of overturn-related fatal injuries.

Farming is one of the few industries in which families (who often share the work and live on the premises) are also at risk for injuries, illness, and death. Agriculture is the most dangerous industry for young workers, accounting for 42% of all work-related fatalities of young workers in the U.S. between 1992 and 2000. In 2011, 108 youth, less than 20 years of age, died from farm-related injuries. Unlike other industries, half the young victims in agriculture were under age 15. For young agricultural workers aged 15–17, the risk of fatal injury is four times the risk for young workers in other workplaces. Agricultural work exposes young workers to safety hazards such as machinery, confined spaces, work at elevations, and work around livestock. The most common causes of fatal farm-related youth injuries involve machinery, motor vehicles, or drowning. Together these three causes comprise more than half of all fatal injuries to youth on U.S. farms. Women in agriculture (including the related industries of forestry and fishing) numbered 556,000 in 2011.

Research centers

Some US research centers are focused on the topic of health and safety in agricultural practices. These centers not only conduct research on the subject of occupational disease and injury prevention, but also promote agricultural health and safety through educational outreach programs. Most of these groups are funded by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, the US Department of Agriculture, or other state agencies. Centers include:

• Northeast Center for Agricultural and Occupational Health, New York Center for Agricultural Medicine and Health, Cooperstown, NY

• Great Plains Center for Agricultural Health, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA

• The High Plains Intermountain Center for Agricultural Health and Safety, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO

• Southeast Center for Agricultural Health and Injury Prevention, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY

• Southwest Center for Agricultural Health, Injury Prevention and Education, University of Texas, Tyler, TX• Western Center for Agricultural Health and Safety, University of California, Davis, CA

• Pacific Northwest Agricultural Safety and Health Center, University of Washington, Seattle, WA

• National Children's Center for Rural and Agricultural Health and Safety, Marshfield Medical Center, Marshfield, WI

2.4 Farming As Big Business

American farmers approached the 21st century with some of the same problems they encountered during the 20th century. The most important of these continued to be overproduction. As has been true since the nation's founding, continuing improvements in farm machinery, better seeds, better fertilizers, more irrigation, and effective pest control have made farmers more and more successful in what they do (except for making money). And while farmers generally have favored holding down overall crop output to shore up prices, they have balked at cutting their own production. 
     Just as an industrial enterprise might seek to boost profits by becoming bigger and more efficient, many American farms have gotten larger and larger and have consolidated their operations to become leaner as well. In fact, American agriculture increasingly has become an "agribusiness," a term created to reflect the big, corporate nature of many farm enterprises in the modern U.S. economy. Agribusiness includes a variety of farm businesses and structures, from small, one-family corporations to huge conglomerates or multinational firms that own large tracts of land or that produce goods and materials used by farmers. 
     The advent of agribusiness in the late 20th century has meant fewer but much larger farms. Sometimes owned by absentee stockholders, these corporate farms use more machinery and far fewer farm hands. In 1940, there were 6 million farms averaging 67 hectares each. By the late 1990s, there were only about 2.2 million farms averaging 190 hectares in size. During roughly this same period, farm employment declined dramatically from 12.5 million in 1930 to 1.2 million in the 1990s even as the total U.S. population more than doubled. In 1900, half of the labor force were farmers, but by the end of the century only 2 percent worked on farms. And nearly 60 percent of the remaining farmers at the end of the century worked only part-time on farms; they held other, non-farm jobs to supplement their farm income. The high cost of capital investment in land and equipment makes entry into full-time farming extremely difficult for most persons. 
     As these numbers demonstrate, the American "family farm" rooted firmly in the nation's history and celebrated in the myth of the sturdy yeoman faces powerful economic challenges. Urban and suburban Americans continue to rhapsodize about the neat barns and cultivated fields of the traditional rural landscape, but it remains uncertain whether they will be willing to pay the price either in higher food prices or government subsidies to farmers -of preserving the family farm.

A large reason why agricultural policy has favored farmers over the course of United States history is because farmers tend to have favorable proportional political representation in government. The United States Senate tends to grant more power per person to inhabitants of rural states. Also, because the United States House of Representatives is re-apportioned only every 10 years by the United States Census, and population tends to shift from rural to urban areas, farmers are often left with greater proportional power until the re-apportionment is complete.

Also, the majority of agricultural policy research is funded by the USDA. Some economists believe this creates an incentive for government intervention to persist because, among other considerations, the USDA will most likely not fund research criticizing its own activities.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Conclusion

. Over the past 100 years, the U.S. agricultural sector has become one of the most productive in the world, and citizens of this country have become accustomed to a safe and relatively inexpensive supply of food.  
          Despite the sharp decline in the number of citizens involved in production agriculture over the past century, there is a recognition that families involved in farming and the diversity of farm operators are important to the cultural identity of country. The farming and ranching lifestyle is still believed to be an important and virtuous endeavor, worthy of continued support. Evidence of this can be seen in the popularity of farmers' markets, where consumers can get back in touch with those producers who are the source of the food they consume.  
         What revolutionary changes are in store for agriculture in the foreseeable future? We will likely see continued specialization and growth in the areas of sustainable agriculture, organic farming, niche farming, and direct marketing. The promise for genetic engineering to lower costs, improve production, and reduce the impact of farming on the environment still must be realized. A trend toward biobased energy products, as an alternative to those made from petroleum, could have a profound impact on the future role of agriculture in this country. The increasing use of technology, such as computers and global positioning systems, in the production and marketing of commodities also provides a glimpse of what is to come.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sources

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_the_United_States
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agricultural_policy_of_the_United_States
3. http://usa.usembassy.de/economy-agriculture.htm
4. http://usa.usembassy.de/etexts/oecon/chap8.htm
5. http://www.usa.gov/Citizen/Topics/Environment-Agriculture/Agriculture.shtml
6. http://www.nal.usda.gov/afsic/pubs/csa/csa.shtml
7. http://www.epa.gov/agriculture/ag101/cropmajor.html
8. https://www.sba.gov/content/agriculture
9. http://www.fb.org/index.php?fuseaction=newsroom.fastfacts