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. 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.
