Book description
At a time when food is becoming increasingly scarce in many parts of
the world and food prices are skyrocketing, no industry is more
important than agriculture. Humans have been farming for thousands of
years, and yet agriculture has undergone more fundamental changes in
the past 80 years than in the previous several centuries. In 1900, 30
million American farmers tilled the soil or tended livestock; today
there are fewer than 4. 5 million farmers who feed a population four
times larger than it was at the beginning of the century. Fifty years
ago, the planet could not have sustained a population of 6. 5 billion;
now, commercial and industrial agriculture ensure that millions will
not die from starvation. Farmers are able to feed an exponentially
growing planet because the greatest industrial revolution in history
has occurred in agriculture since 1929, with U. S. farmers leading the
way. Productivity on American farms has increased tenfold, even as
most small farmers and tenants have been forced to find other work.
Today, only 300,000 farms produce approximately ninety percent of the
total output, and overproduction, largely subsidized by government
programs and policies, has become the hallmark of modern agriculture.
A Revolution Down on the Farm: The Transformation of American
Agriculture since 1929 charts the profound changes in farming that
have occurred during author Paul K. Conkin's lifetime. His personal
experiences growing up on a small Tennessee farm complement compelling
statistical data as he explores America's vast agricultural
transformation and considers its social, political, and economic
consequences. He examines the history of American agriculture, showing
how New Deal innovations evolved into convoluted commodity programs
following World War II. Conkin assesses the skills, new technologies,
and government policies that helped transform farming in America and
suggests how new legislation might affect farming in decades to come.
Although the increased production and mechanization of farming has
been an economic success story for Americans, the costs are becoming
increasingly apparent. Small farmers are put out of business when they
cannot compete with giant, non-diversified corporate farms. Caged
chickens and hogs in factory-like facilities or confined dairy cattle
require massive amounts of chemicals and hormones ultimately ingested
by consumers. Fertilizers, new organic chemicals, manure disposal, and
genetically modified seeds have introduced environmental problems that
are still being discovered. A Revolution Down on the Farm concludes
with an evaluation of farming in the twenty-first century and a
distinctive meditation on alternatives to our present large scale,
mechanized, subsidized, and fossil fuel and chemically dependent system.
""Revolution clarifies an immensely complex topic, not
only changes in American agricultural practices and technologies, but
also the politics of definition and the long term repercussions of
what many might simply ignored as banal."--Southeastern
Librarian" --
Paul K. Conkin is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of History at
Vanderbilt University. He is the author of numerous books, including
The State of the Earth, The Southern Agrarians, and When All the Gods Trembled.
