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Agriculture is a major industry in the United States and the country is a net exporter of food.
History of agriculture in the USA
In the U.S., farms spread from the colonies westward along with the settlers. In cooler regions, wheat was often the crop of choice when lands were newly settled, leading to a "wheat frontier" that moved westward over the course of years. Also very common in the antebellum Midwest was farming corn while raising hogs, complementing each other especially since it was difficult to get grain to market before the canals and railroads. After the "wheat frontier" had passed through an area, more diversified farms including dairy cattle generally took its place. Warmer regions saw plantings of cotton and herds of beef cattle. In the early colonial south, raising tobacco and cotton was common, especially through the use of slave labor until the Civil War. In the northeast, slaves were used in agriculture until the early 19th century. In the Midwest, slavery was prohibited by the Freedom Ordinance of 1787.
Soybeans were not widely cultivated in the United States until the 1950s, when soybeans began to replace oats and wheat.
Significant areas of farmland were abandoned during the Great Depression and incorporated into nascent national forests. Later, "Sodbuster" and "Swampbuster" restrictions written into federal farm programs starting in the 1970s reversed a decades-long trend of habitat destruction that began in 1942 when farmers were encouraged to plant all possible land in support of the war effort. In the United States, federal programs administered through local Soil and Water Conservation Districts provide technical assistance and partial funding to farmers who wish to implement management practices to conserve soil and limit erosion.
Major agricultural products
The top twenty agricultural products of the United States by value as reported by the FAO in 2003 (ranked in order of value with mass in metric tons):
| 1. | Corn | 256,904,992 |
| 2. | Cattle meat | 11,736,300 |
| 3. | Cow's milk, whole, fresh | 78,155,000 |
| 4. | Chicken meat | 15,006,000 |
| 5. | Soybeans | 65,795,300 |
| 6. | Pig meat | 8,574,290 |
| 7. | Wheat | 63,589,820 |
| 8. | Cotton lint | 3,967,810 |
| 9. | Hen eggs | 5,141,000 |
| 10. | Turkey meat | 2,584,200 |
| 11. | Tomatoes | 12,275,000 |
| 12. | Potatoes | 20,821,930 |
| 13. | Grapes | 6,125,670 |
| 14. | Oranges | 10,473,450 |
| 15. | Rice, paddy | 9,033,610 |
| 16. | Apples | 4,241,810 |
| 17. | Sorghum | 10,445,900 |
| 18. | Lettuce | 4,490,000 |
| 19. | Cottonseed | 6,072,690 |
| 20. | Sugar beets | 27,764,390 |
The only other crops to ever appear in the top twenty in the last 40 years were, commonly, tobacco, barley, and oats, and, rarely, peanuts, almonds, and sunflower seeds (in all, only 26 of the 188 crops the FAO tracks worldwide). Alfalfa and hay would both be in the top ten in 2003 if they were tracked by FAO.
Crops
Value of production
The major field crops with the value of production are:
| Major Crops in the U.S.A. - 1997 (in US$ billions) | |
|---|---|
| Corn | $24.4 |
| Soybean | $17.7 |
| Wheat | $8.6 |
| Alfalfa | $8.3 |
| Cotton | $6.1 |
| Hay, other than alfalfa | $5.1 |
| Tobacco | $3.0 |
| Rice | $1.7 |
| Sorghum | $1.4 |
| Barley | $.9 |
| ''Source: 1997 USDA-NASS reports, * | |
Note alfalfa and hay are not tracked by the FAO and the production of tobacco in the U.S. has fallen 60% between 1997 and 2003.
Yield
U.S. agriculture has a high yield relative to other countries. The yield was (in 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)
Livestock
The major livestock industries in the United States are:
Inventories in the United States at the end of 1997 were:
- 403,000,000 chickens
- 99,500,000 cattle
- 59,900,000 hogs
- 7,600,000 sheep
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 (AZ, NM, and TX) there were 1,200,000 goats at the end of 2002. There were 5,300,000 horses in the United States at the end of 1998. There were 2,500,000 colonies of bees at the end of 2002.
Farm Type or Majority Enterprise Type
Farm type is based on which commodities are the majority crops grown on a farm. Nine common types include:
- Cash Grains includes corn, soybeans and other grains (wheat, oats, barley, sorghum), dry edible beans and peas, and rice.
- Tobacco
- Cotton
- Other Field Crops includes peanuts, potatoes, sunflowers, sweet potatoes, sugarcane, broomcorn, popcorn, sugar beets, mint, hops, seed crops, hay, silage, forage, etc. Tobacco and cotton can be included here if not in their own separate category.
- High Value Crops includes fruits, vegetables, melons, tree nuts, greenhouse and nursery crops, and horticultural specialties.
- Cattle
- Hogs
- Dairy
- Poultry and Eggs
Governance
Agriculture is both a federal and a local responsibility with the United States Department of Agriculture being the federal department responsible. Agriculture is an extremely powerful interest group in American politics and has been since the founding of the USA. Government aid includes research into crop types and regional suitability as well as many kinds of subsidies, some price supports and loan programs. U.S. farmers are not subject to production quotas and some laws are different for farms compared to other workplaces.
Child labor laws provide some exemption for children working on farms with complete exemptions for children working on their family's farm. Children can also gain permits from vocational training schools or the 4-H club which allow them to do jobs they would otherwise not be permitted to do.
A large part of the U.S. farm workforce is made up of migrant and seasonal workers, many of them recent immigrants from Latin America or aliens working under work permits. Additional laws apply to these workers and their housing which is often provided by the farmer.
Employment
In 1870, half of the US population was employed in agriculture. As of 2006, less than 1% of the population is directly employed in agriculture.
In 2004, of the 145 million employed workers in the US, 834,000 of them held jobs as agricultural workers. 83% of these jobs were as farm workers. The median hourly income as of May 2004 was $7.70 for farmworkers planting, growing and harvesting crops, and $8.31 for farmworkers tending to animals.*
"Agriculture in the United States"