Download or read book Regulation and the Revolution in United States Farm Productivity written by Sally H. Clarke and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2002-07-25 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explains how US government activity in the 1930s led to gains in farm productivity.
Download or read book A Revolution Down on the Farm written by Paul K. Conkin and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2008-09-01 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Agricultural Productivity and Producer Behavior written by Wolfram Schlenker and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2019-11-13 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Agricultural yields have increased steadily in the last half century, particularly since the Green Revolution. At the same time, inflation-adjusted agricultural commodity prices have been trending downward as increases in supply outpace the growth of demand. Recent severe weather events, biofuel mandates, and a switch toward a more meat-heavy diet in emerging economies have nevertheless boosted commodity prices. Whether this is a temporary jump or the beginning of a longer-term trend is an open question. Agricultural Productivity and Producer Behavior examines the factors contributing to the remarkably steady increase in global yields and assesses whether yield growth can continue. This research also considers whether agricultural productivity growth has been, and will be, associated with significant environmental externalities. Among the topics studied are genetically modified crops; changing climatic factors; farm production responses to government regulations including crop insurance, transport subsidies, and electricity subsidies for groundwater extraction; and the role of specific farm practices such as crop diversification, disease management, and water-saving methods. This research provides new evidence that technological as well as policy choices influence agricultural productivity.
Download or read book Days on the Family Farm written by Carrie A. Meyer and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 2013-11-30 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the beginning of the twentieth century to World War II, farm wife May Lyford Davis kept a daily chronicle that today offers a window into a way of life that has all but disappeared. May and her husband Elmo lived through two decades of prosperity, the Great Depression, and two World Wars in their Midwestern farming community. Like many women of her time, Davis kept diaries that captured the everyday events of the family farm; she also kept meticulous farming accounts. In doing so, she left an extraordinary record that reflects not only her own experiences but also the history of early twentieth-century American agriculture. May and Elmo’s story, engagingly told by Carrie A. Meyer, showcases the large-scale evolution of agriculture from horses to automobiles and tractors, a surprisingly vibrant family and community life, and the business of commercial farming. Details such as what items were bought and sold, what was planted and harvested, the temperature and rainfall, births and deaths, and the direction of the wind are gathered to reveal a rich picture of a world shared by many small farmers. With sustainable and small-scale farming again on the rise in the United States, Days on the Family Farm resonates with both the profound and mundane aspects of rural life—past and present—in the Midwest.
Download or read book The Resisted Revolution written by David B. Danbom and published by Wiley-Blackwell. This book was released on 1979 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Creative Society and the Price Americans Paid for It written by Louis Galambos and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines the nation's emerging ranks of professional experts - including doctors, lawyers, scientists and administrators - and their role in shaping modern America.
Download or read book The Challenge of Remaining Innovative written by Sally H. Clarke and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2009 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The contributors explore two main themes: the challenge of remaining innovative and the necessity of managing institutional boundaries in doing so. The book is organized into four parts, which move outward from individual firms; to networks or clusters of firms; to consultants and other intermediaries in the private economy who operate outside of the firms themselves; and finally to government institutions and politics. "--Editor.
Download or read book The Fourth Industrial Revolution written by Klaus Schwab and published by Currency. This book was released on 2017-01-03 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: World-renowned economist Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, explains that we have an opportunity to shape the fourth industrial revolution, which will fundamentally alter how we live and work. Schwab argues that this revolution is different in scale, scope and complexity from any that have come before. Characterized by a range of new technologies that are fusing the physical, digital and biological worlds, the developments are affecting all disciplines, economies, industries and governments, and even challenging ideas about what it means to be human. Artificial intelligence is already all around us, from supercomputers, drones and virtual assistants to 3D printing, DNA sequencing, smart thermostats, wearable sensors and microchips smaller than a grain of sand. But this is just the beginning: nanomaterials 200 times stronger than steel and a million times thinner than a strand of hair and the first transplant of a 3D printed liver are already in development. Imagine “smart factories” in which global systems of manufacturing are coordinated virtually, or implantable mobile phones made of biosynthetic materials. The fourth industrial revolution, says Schwab, is more significant, and its ramifications more profound, than in any prior period of human history. He outlines the key technologies driving this revolution and discusses the major impacts expected on government, business, civil society and individuals. Schwab also offers bold ideas on how to harness these changes and shape a better future—one in which technology empowers people rather than replaces them; progress serves society rather than disrupts it; and in which innovators respect moral and ethical boundaries rather than cross them. We all have the opportunity to contribute to developing new frameworks that advance progress.
Download or read book Gas Pipelines and the Emergence of America s Regulatory State written by Christopher J. Castaneda and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2003-10-30 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A study of the changing relationship between regulatory policy and the modern corporation.
Download or read book Cost of horse labor written by and published by . This book was released on 1918 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book American Agriculture in the Twentieth Century written by Bruce L. Gardner and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2006-03-31 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: American agriculture in the twentieth century has given the world one of its great success stories, a paradigm of productivity and plenty. Yet the story has its dark side, from the plight of the Okies in the 1930s to the farm crisis of the 1980s to today's concerns about low crop prices and the impact of biotechnology. Looking at U.S. farming over the past century, Bruce Gardner searches out explanations for both the remarkable progress and the persistent social problems that have marked the history of American agriculture. Gardner documents both the economic difficulties that have confronted farmers and the technological and economic transformations that have lifted them from relative poverty to economic parity with the nonfarm population. He provides a detailed analysis of the causes of these trends, with emphasis on the role of government action. He reviews how commodity support programs, driven by interest-group politics, have spent hundreds of billions of dollars to little purpose. Nonetheless, Gardner concludes that by reconciling competing economic interests while fostering productivity growth and economic integration of the farm and nonfarm economies, the overall twentieth-century role of government in American agriculture is fairly viewed as a triumph of democracy.
Download or read book On The Great Plains written by Geoff Cunfer and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "To support his theory, Cunfer looks at the entire Great Plains (450 counties in ten states), tapping historical agricultural census data paired with GIS mapping to illuminate land use on the Great Plains over 130 years. Coupled with several community and family case studies, this database allows Cunfer to reassess the interaction between farmers and nature in the Great Plains agricultural landscape."--BOOK JACKET.
Download or read book Food Power written by Bryan L. McDonald and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Debates during the postwar years about how food power could help the United States achieve goals such as stability, prosperity, and security were part of a larger conversation about the role of food in the security of states, communities, and individuals.0America helped build a new, postwar food system based on the steadying influence of American agricultural surpluses that helped maintain stable prices and food availability. This system averted a global-scale food crisis for almost three decades. The end of this food system in the early 1970s ushered in a much more unstable period in global food relations. 'Food power' argues that efforts to both interpret America's role in the world during the mid-twentieth century and to address contemporary food problems can be strengthened by understanding more fully the ways postwar American policymakers and experts sought to shape the politics of security and prosperity by linking people and places around the world through food.
Download or read book Class Gender and the American Family Farm in the 20th Century written by Elizabeth Ramey and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-04-24 with total page 163 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Integrating a focus on gender with Marx’s surplus-based notion of class, this book offers a one-of-a-kind analysis of family farms in the United States. The analysis shows how gender and class struggles developed during important moments in the history of these family farms shaped the trajectory of U.S. agricultural development. It also generates surprising insights about the family farm we thought we knew, as well as the food and agricultural system today. Elizabeth A. Ramey theorizes the family farm as a complex hybrid of mostly feudal and ancient class structures. This class-based definition of the family farm yields unique insights into three broad aspects of U.S. agricultural history. First, the analysis highlights the crucial, yet under-recognized role of farm women and children’s unpaid labor in subsidizing the family farm. Second, it allows for a new, class-based perspective on the roots of the twentieth century "miracle of productivity" in U.S. agriculture, and finally, the book demonstrates how the unique set of contradictions and circumstances facing family farmers during the early twentieth century, including class exploitation, was connected to concern for their ability to serve the needs of U.S. industrial capitalist development. The argument presented here highlights the significant costs associated with the intensification of exploitation in the transition to industrial agriculture in the U.S. When viewed through the lens of class, the hallowed family farm becomes an example of one of the most exploitative institutions in the U.S. economy. This book is suitable for students who study economic history, agricultural studies, and labor economics.
Download or read book The Concise Princeton Encyclopedia of American Political History written by Michael Kazin and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2011-08-08 with total page 657 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An essential guide to U.S. politics, from the founding to today With 150 accessible articles written by more than 130 leading experts, this essential reference provides authoritative introductions to some of the most important and talked-about topics in American history and politics, from the founding to today. Abridged from the acclaimed Princeton Encyclopedia of American Political History, this is the only single-volume encyclopedia that provides comprehensive coverage of both the traditional topics of U.S. political history and the broader forces that shape American politics--including economics, religion, social movements, race, class, and gender. Fully indexed and cross-referenced, each entry provides crucial context, expert analysis, informed perspectives, and suggestions for further reading. Contributors include Dean Baker, Lewis Gould, Alex Keyssar, James Kloppenberg, Patricia Nelson Limerick, Lisa McGirr, Jack Rakove, Nick Salvatore, Stephen Skowronek, Jeremi Suri, Julian Zelizer, and many more. Entries cover: Key political periods, from the founding to today Political institutions, major parties, and founding documents The broader forces that shape U.S. politics, from economics, religion, and social movements to race, class, and gender Ideas, philosophies, and movements The political history and influence of geographic regions
Download or read book From Prairie Farmer to Entrepreneur written by Dennis Nordin and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Their account will inform readers with a detailed account of one of the great transformations in American life."--BOOK JACKET.
Download or read book Role of Biotechnology in Agriculture written by B. N. Prasad and published by . This book was released on 1992 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the context of South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation countries.
