In all the history of empire building there is no chapter to compare with that which tells the story of the development of the great West from a vast stretch of prairie, desert, and primeval forest into the richest and most extensive agricultural empire in the world. The rapidity and completeness with which this transformation has been affected are chiefly due to the invention of agricultural machinery of wonderful precision and capacity.
America’s history, economic growth, and global competitiveness are tightly intertwined with food. Science, technology, inventors, and entrepreneurs have been the indispensable ingredients in our American economic apple pie.
In the Colonial era, more than 90% of the population engaged in farming, using tools not that different than those their ancient ancestors used. Plows were scarce: The Plymouth colony had none for 12 years, farmers of Massachusetts Bay had only 30 by 1635, the Virginia Colony had 150 by 1648. The plows were heavy and awkward. As the population moved westward, pioneers struggled to turn the heavy, sticky soil of the great prairie, even with a cast iron plow.
But the mid-19th century saw a wave of agricultural innovations. In 1837, John Deere introduced the self-scouring steel plow, solving the problem of sticky soil. Once taking two men with horses or oxen an entire day to plow an acre, the time dropped to five to eight hours with steel plows, easing the way for westward expansion. Deere continued to build a legacy of innovation and is a $44 billion global giant employing more than 75,000 people today. Its farm machines are now rolling data centers, and the company is leading the revolution in precision and AI-enabled agriculture.
With new inventions emerging, average annual investment per farmer in farm machinery and equipment soared from $7 in 1859 to $26 in 1880 (constant dollars). Around 1905, gasoline tractors made plowing easier; a farmer with a tractor pulling a four-row cultivator could plant 60 to 65 acres of corn a day, compared to the eight to 10 acres he could plant with a two-horse team. By 1911, a farmer with a tractor could plow, harrow, and roll a 10-acre field in a day for 40 to 50 cents an acre. Prior to the tractor, it is estimated that it would have taken 10 men and 20 horses to do the job at a cost of $1.25 an acre for plowing alone.
Agricultural labor productivity leaped. As farm acreage and production expanded, cheaper food freed capital for industrialization and plentiful food allowed labor to move from farms to factories, fueling the rise of U.S. cities. From 1800 to 1900, the share of the U.S. population living in urban areas rose eightfold, from 4% to 33%, and doubling from 1860 to 1900.
In the 1860s, America built the land-grant university and extension system, which has played a crucial role in educating farmers how to use new machinery and change their practices to fully leverage these advancements. This knowledge and training infrastructure has been a major productivity driver. From 1948 to 2017, total agricultural output almost tripled even though total labor hours worked in the sector declined more than 80%. This is credited to labor quality. Between 1950 and 2017, the largest growth in the share of hours worked in agriculture was among workers with at least a four-year college degree, and the share of hours worked by those with some college or a four-year degree rose from about 4% to 41%.
Today, the nation invests more than $3.6 billion in agricultural sciences research and development (R&D) at land-grant and other U.S. higher education institutions. Some of these funds come from the $3.3 billion the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) spends on research, education, and extension. USDA’s last analysis showed that private food and agriculture R&D tripled since 2000 to more than $12 billion. USDA analyzed studies assessing the social rate of return to agricultural research, suggesting that each dollar spent on agricultural research returned about $10 worth of benefits to the economy.
The U.S. food sector has grown into an economic and competitiveness powerhouse. Agriculture, food, and related industries contributed more than a $1 trillion to U.S. GDP in 2020, a 5% share. The United States is the world’s largest food exporter, posting its highest agricultural export levels ever in 2021, reaching $177 billion, topping the 2020 total by 18%, generating a trade surplus, with large surpluses in meat, dairy products, and cereals — a bright spot in our overall negative balance of trade. Every $1 billion in agricultural exports supports an estimated 7,700 jobs and $1.14 billion in additional economic activity.
Some 110,000 establishments in the U.S. agriculture sector produce a bounty with 2.2 million workers and self-employed, less than 2% of U.S. workers. But, looking at what it takes to put food on the plate — including agriculture, fishing, hunting, food and beverage manufacturing, farm machinery and equipment manufacturing, agricultural chemical manufacturing, food and beverage stores, food services and drinking places, and wholesalers — the employment footprint expands to 17.6 million workers, or nearly 15% of private sector employment.
The global market for food and beverage products is on a growth trajectory, forecast to reach nearly $2 trillion by 2025. Rising prosperity in developing countries is expected to add 1.5 billion people to the global middle class in the decade ahead, boosting demand for better food and more protein rich diets.
However, our success in food has created challenges. Improving health and longevity, and reducing disease requires transitioning from a food system rich in processed food products laden with sugar, fillers, and additives to more options such as plant-based meat and dairy. According to a survey by USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service, the average score for Americans was 59 out of 100 for eating food that aligns with dietary guidelines.
Food production is contributing to serious environmental problems. Thirty-one percent of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions come from agri-food systems. The U.S. cradle-to-consumer food supply chain accounts for 11% of total U.S. energy use and about 30% of U.S. blue water withdrawals, even as some areas of the country are water stressed. Rice is a major staple crop for more than half the world’s population, but growing it produces methane, a greenhouse gas far more potent than CO2, over a 20-year period, 80 times more potent at warming. Climate change’s potential to cause more extreme weather; changes in temperature and precipitation, affecting soil quality and moisture that could decrease arable land, droughts, floods, wildfires, shifts in pest and disease patterns; and declines in pollinator health all threaten agricultural productivity and production. Mitigating carbon production and GHG emissions from food production must address how to remove such harmful byproducts and cultivate sustainably.
Strong demand for ethanol has driven corn prices higher, providing incentives for farmers to increase corn acreage. Today, 40% of the U.S. corn crop is used for ethanol production. In many cases, farmers have increased corn acreage by swapping soybean or cotton plantings for corn, reducing the fallowing that lets fields recover, or planting corn on cropland used as pasture.
Food waste is a big problem. The U.S. wastes more than one-third of its food supply, not only wasting food and nutrients but also the resources used to produce them. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that the industrial, residential, commercial, and institutional sectors waste almost 102 million tons of food, with 35% of it sent to the landfill.
Building sustainable and healthy, carbon neutral food systems from farm to factory to fork is a golden opportunity. Addressing climate change, water scarcity, biodiversity loss, and food packaging waste creates a perfect storm for new innovative products and services across food cultivation, production, distribution, and consumption systems.
