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Straight Talk About Modern Farms and Rural “Decline,” Pt. 2

Blog Post | Food Production

Straight Talk About Modern Farms and Rural “Decline,” Pt. 2

The eco-modern farm revolution is here.

I argued in Part 1 of this essay that the modernization of American farming in the twentieth century helped alleviate multiple social ills. Powered tractors and harvesters reduced the physical burdens of most field work, but labor requirements were lessened by another innovation as well: the raising of farm animals like chickens, pigs, and dairy cows inside modern, biosecure automated barns.

My grandfather’s traditional Indiana farm in the 1930s raised five different kinds of animals (in addition to ten different crops). The feeding, watering, managing, and cleaning up after all these animals was a never-ending chore, one frequently assigned to the children. Modern livestock barns, which began arriving in the middle decades of the twentieth century, saved labor by automating most of the feeding, watering, and cleanout. In the late 1930s it required eight and a half hours of human labor to produce 100 pounds of broiler chickens, but by the early 1980s this had fallen to just six minutes.

Modern livestock operations have been dismissed by critics as “factory farms,” but bringing the animals into temperature controlled, biosecure environments protected them from nature’s extremes, provided safety from predators and reduced their exposure to disease. Tapeworm parasites were not eliminated from the meat supply in Europe and North America until small-scale pig rearing was replaced by confined production. Between the 1940s and 1980s the incidence of trichi­nosis in pig farming also fell, from four hundred clinical cases annually to sixty cases. The pathogen T. gondii was found in one out of five marketed hogs in the 1980s, but it has now been reduced by over 90 percent. Dr. Rodney Baker, a former president of the American Association of Swine Veterinarians, asserts, “By bringing the animals indoors and creating biosecurity, we’ve truly eliminated about 15 diseases and parasites we had back to the 1980s.”

Today’s livestock systems also emit fewer greenhouse gasses for every pound of production, thanks to better genetics and improved feeds. More efficient feed use brings more rapid weight gain, less manure, and less belched out methane for every pound of production. According to United Nations data, livestock production in the United States has more than doubled since 1961, yet direct greenhouse gas emissions from livestock have declined 11 percent. In 1950 the United States had twenty-five million dairy cows; now the number is only nine million, even though milk production is 60 percent higher. Frank Mitloehner, a professor of animal science and an air quality specialist at the University of California Davis, concludes that the climate burden of a single glass of milk in the United States today is two-thirds smaller than it was in 1950.

For pork production since the 1990s, average feed requirements for every added pound of weight gain have fallen by almost half. For chickens since 1950, average feed requirements per pound of live-weight broilers declined more than one third. In beef production since the seventies, every pound of meat now requires 12 percent less water, 19 percent less feed, 30 percent fewer animals, and 33 percent less land, while generating 18 percent less manure. Americans are eating too much meat—five times as much as they did in 1940—but until this excess is corrected the environment will gain better protection from modern compared to traditional systems.

One livestock system failing has been weak protection for the welfare of the animals. For pregnant sows in tight gestation crates and egg-laying hens in cramped cages, extreme confinement makes these animals easier to manage but it frustrates their instinctive behavior and compromises their physical and emotional wellbeing. These are failings that need to be corrected, but that can be done without a return to yesterday’s less productive and less secure barnyard and pasture systems. Recent experience in Europe shows farm animals can be given a good life indoors if barns are enriched and more spacious. Thanks to a 2008 European Union directive, European pigs are now required to have ample light, less noise, more space to lie down, and pregnant sows cannot be confined in crates. To help overcome boredom, the pigs must even be given objects they can manipulate—in other words, toys. In Europe, which actually raises twice as many pigs as the United States, these welfare enhancements have proved to be affordable.

It’s fine to be sentimental about our loss of farming traditions, but we should not view traditional methods as better for the environment. Farms in America today produce three times as much as they did in 1940. If we had tried to triple production using the low-yield, low-tech methods of the past the environmental damage would have been many times greater than it is today. In fact, we had already reached the environmental limits of traditional low-yield farming in the 1930s, when cropping was extended onto the drought-prone Southern Plains. When drought struck the soil blew away, creating a disastrous “Dust Bowl” and a stream of 400,000 environmental refugees. Only after 1950 did cropped area stop increasing, thanks to the uptake of nitrogen fertilizers and hybrid seeds.  Corn production in the United States increased fivefold after 1940, yet the area planted to corn actually decreased by twenty percent, saving land for nature.

More recently, American farms have protected nature by adopting a wide range of new techniques, including no-till seeding, GPS-steered equipment, digital soil mapping, variable rate input application, drip irrigation, drones to scout the fields for pest pressures and crop disease, big data to calibrate an optimal response, and genetically engineered seeds that self-protect against insects with fewer chemical sprays. Thanks to such innovations, farming in America is far less energy and resource intensive today. Compared to 1980, corn production by 2015 required 41 percent less land for every bushel of output, 46 percent less irrigation water, 41 percent less energy use, and it emitted 31 percent less greenhouse gas. Total crop production in America increased 44 percent after 1981, yet total fertil­izer use scarcely increased at all. Total pesticide use fell 18 percent in absolute terms, with insecticide use falling to less than 20 percent of the 1972 level. Modern agriculture is less resource intensive because, like much of the rest of our modern economy, it has become better engineered, GPS-located, more digital, sensor-informed, and computer-networked.   

Modern farming in America has also become “multi-agricultural.” Most of our food is now being produced on large high-tech farms using eco-modern “precision agriculture” equipment, but this has left plenty of room on the land for other kinds of farms, mostly small farms that do not use high-tech production methods.  Many of these are “life-style” farms. They make very little money growing food but are able to sustain themselves with off-farm income or retirement savings. In 1929, only 6 percent of American farms reported 200 days of work off the farm every year, but by 1997 this had increased to 35 percent. As of 2016, three out of five farms in America (defined as operations with at least $1000 in sales every year) were either pure retirement farms with little or no farming income, or hobby farms where agricultural production was not the primary occupation. These smaller farms produce very little food, but they keep people on the land and help sustain rural communities.      

Many rural communities are struggling today, but it isn’t because today’s farms are struggling.  Rural counties are coping with aging populations, job loss, family breakdown, and substance abuse, yet today’s job losses usually occur in the manufacturing and service sectors, not in agriculture. The rate of farm consolidation has slowed considerably over the past two decades, so few farms have been “lost” recently. In 2000 America had 2.16 million farms, and two decades later the number is only slightly smaller, at 2.02 million.

Many rural counties are relatively poor today, but few of the poor households live on farms. Only 2 percent of America’s farm households fall below the poverty line, compared to 14 percent of all U.S. households. The average income for farm households in America in 2016 was 42 percent above the average for nonfarm households, and the median net worth of households operating farms was an impressive $912,000. In Indiana where I grew up, some small farms may look poor from the road, but every acre of average-quality farmland in the state is worth about $7,000, so even small homesteads can be sitting on a considerable cushion of land wealth. Farmers in the state like to joke about living poor but dying rich.     

Big farms produce most of our food today, but our more numerous small farms produce other things of considerable social value. In New England, where I now live, the total commercial sales made by all the farms (large and small) in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Rhode Island combined represent less than 1 percent of total national farm sales. Yet these New England farms are now drawing progressive young families into the countryside, anchoring local communities through regular CSA and farmers market sales, and attracting seasonal visitors from urban America by preserving a well-tended rural landscape. 

In one fortunate respect, modern farming patterns in America have scarcely changed at all. The USDA defines a “family farm” as one where the majority of the business is owned either by the operator or by individuals related to the operator, even if some may not live in the operator’s household. By this definition, 96 percent of America’s farms and ranches today—including both large and small, modern and traditional—are still family farms. Family values thus continue to fuel the success of both large and small farms in America, no less than they did in our fondly remembered agrarian past.  

Robert L. Paarlberg is the Betty Freyhof Johnson ’44 Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the Wellesley College. This two-part essay is based on his new book, Resetting the Table: Straight Talk About the Food We Grow and Eat.

Our World in Data | Crop Yields

Vegetables Grew Faster than Population over the Last 60 Years

“For almost all of human history, food was scarce for nearly everyone. The reason for this perpetual scarcity was that whenever food production increased, it did not lead to more food per capita but to more people.

Food production did not increase per capita. Population pressure ensured that living standards remained only barely above the subsistence level. Economic historians refer to this mechanism as the Malthusian Trap, and if you’d like to know more, you could read my article about it.

This changed in the last decades. More and more societies around the world broke out of the Malthusian Trap. We see this in the data as increasing food production in per capita terms. The chart shows that farmers have grown many fruits, vegetables, and nuts faster than the world population has increased.”

From Our World in Data.

World Grain | Crop Yields

Origin Agritech Reveals Corn Yield Breakthrough

“Origin Agritech Ltd. said it has utilized ‘precise gene-editing techniques’ to develop a high-yield corn inbred line that significantly surpasses the productivity of traditional corn.  

The Beijing-based company said that during two years of rigorous multilocational field trials, the new gene-edited corn inbred line demonstrated a yield increase of over 50% compared to the original line.”

From World Grain.

Blog Post | Science & Education

Introducing Our Upcoming Book, Heroes of Progress

Over the past two centuries, humanity has become massively more prosperous, better educated, healthier, and more peaceful.

The underlying cause of this progress is innovation. Human innovation―whether it be new ideas, inventions, or systems―is the primary way people create wealth and escape poverty.

Our upcoming book, Heroes of Progress: 65 People Who Changed the World, explores the lives of the most important innovators who have ever lived, from agronomists who saved billions from starvation and intellectuals who changed public policy for the better, to businesspeople whose innovations helped millions rise from poverty.

If it weren’t for the heroes profiled in this book, we’d all be far poorer, sicker, hungrier, and less free―if we were fortunate enough to be alive at all.

Considering their impact on humanity, perhaps it’s time to learn their story?

Heroes of Progress book advertised on Amazon for pre-order

Heroes of Progress Book Forum

On March 21st, the author of Heroes of Progress, Alexander Hammond, will present the book live at the Cato Institute in Washington, D.C. He will be joined by Marian Tupy, the editor of Human Progress, and Clay Routledge, the Archbridge Institute’s Vice President of Research, who will speak on the individual’s role in advancing human progress and the need for a cultural progress movement.

Learn more about the event here.

Praise for Heroes of Progress

Making an inspiring case for progress at this time of skepticism and historical ingratitude is no easy feat. Yet, by relentlessly outlining the extraordinary ability of individuals to shape our world for the better, Alexander Hammond does just that.

Steven Pinker, author of Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress

Innovation is a team sport achieved by people working together, using precious freedoms to change the world, so it’s sometimes invidious to single out one person for credit. But once an idea is ripe for plucking, the right person at the right time can seize it and save a million lives or open a million possibilities. Each of these 65 people did that, and their stories are both thrilling and beautiful.

Matt Ridley, author of How Innovation Works: And Why It Flourishes in Freedom

The figures in this book are the overlooked and often unknown figures who have transformed the lives of ordinary people, for the better… This book is a correction to widespread pessimism and is both informative and inspirational.

Dr. Stephen Davies, author of The Wealth Explosion: The Nature and Origins of Modernity

Superman and the Avengers are all very well, of course, but the real superheroes are thinkers, scientists, and innovators of flesh and blood who saved us from a life that used to be poor, nasty, brutish, and short. Alexander Hammond tells their inspiring stories in this magnificent book that will leave you grateful to be living in the world these men and women created.

— Johan Norberg, author of Open: The Story of Human Progress

The 65 innovators honored here made us happier, healthier, and longer-lived. Indeed, it is thanks to some of them that we are here at all. Their story is the story of how the human race acquired powers once attributed to gods and sorcerers―the story of how we overcame hunger, disease, ignorance, and squalor. I defy anyone to read this book and not feel better afterwards.

Lord Daniel Hannan, president of the Institute for Free Trade

The 65 fascinating stories in Heroes of Progress are
testaments to the ingenuity of humankind in delivering a richer,
healthier, and hopefully freer world. Alexander C. R. Hammond
provides an inspirational reminder that when individuals are
free to speak, think, innovate, and engage in open markets, the
heroic potential of humanity knows no bounds.

Lord Syed Kamall, Professor of politics and international relations, St. Mary’s University

In Heroes of Progress, Alexander Hammond reminds us that human minds are the fundamental driver of every discovery, invention, and innovation that has improved our lives. By telling the stories of pioneering men and women who have advanced civilization, this book not only honors past heroes of progress, but also provides inspiration for the next generation to use their uniquely human imaginative and enterprising capacities to build a better future.

— Clay Routledge, Vice President of Research and Director of the Human Flourishing Lab at the Archbridge Institute

Blog Post | Human Development

1,000 Bits of Good News You May Have Missed in 2023

A necessary balance to the torrent of negativity.

Reading the news can leave you depressed and misinformed. It’s partisan, shallow, and, above all, hopelessly negative. As Steven Pinker from Harvard University quipped, “The news is a nonrandom sample of the worst events happening on the planet on a given day.”

So, why does Human Progress feature so many news items? And why did I compile them in this giant list? Here are a few reasons:

  • Negative headlines get more clicks. Promoting positive stories provides a necessary balance to the torrent of negativity.
  • Statistics are vital to a proper understanding of the world, but many find anecdotes more compelling.
  • Many people acknowledge humanity’s progress compared to the past but remain unreasonably pessimistic about the present—not to mention the future. Positive news can help improve their state of mind.
  • We have agency to make the world better. It is appropriate to recognize and be grateful for those who do.

Below is a nonrandom sample (n = ~1000) of positive news we collected this year, separated by topic area. Please scroll, skim, and click. Or—to be even more enlightened—read this blog post and then look through our collection of long-term trends and datasets.

Agriculture

Aquaculture

Farming robots and drones

Food abundance

Genetic modification

Indoor farming

Lab-grown produce

Pollination

Other innovations

Conservation and Biodiversity

Big cats

Birds

Turtles

Whales

Other comebacks

Forests

Reefs

Rivers and lakes

Surveillance and discovery

Rewilding and conservation

De-extinction

Culture and tolerance

Gender equality

General wellbeing

LGBT

Treatment of animals

Energy and natural Resources

Fission

Fusion

Fossil fuels

Other energy

Recycling and resource efficiency

Resource abundance

Environment and pollution

Climate change

Disaster resilience

Air pollution

Water pollution

Growth and development

Education

Economic growth

Housing and urbanization

Labor and employment

Health

Cancer

Disability and assistive technology

Dementia and Alzheimer’s

Diabetes

Heart disease and stroke

Other non-communicable diseases

HIV/AIDS

Malaria

Other communicable diseases

Maternal care

Fertility and birth control

Mental health and addiction

Weight and nutrition

Longevity and mortality 

Surgery and emergency medicine

Measurement and imaging

Health systems

Other innovations

Freedom

    Technology 

    Artificial intelligence

    Communications

    Computing

    Construction and manufacturing

    Drones

    Robotics and automation

    Autonomous vehicles

    Transportation

    Other innovations

    Science

    AI in science

    Biology

    Chemistry and materials

      Physics

      Space

      Violence

      Crime

      War