In the 1930s one American farmer fed three people; now it is over a hundred
More than half a billion of the world's farmers are smallholders, and between them they keep almost two billion people going. Yet in rich countries a single grower may feed over a hundred people, a figure some critics say flatters modern agriculture by ignoring everyone else who supplies its fuel and machinery.
Farming is one of the hallmarks of the Neolithic. By 5000 to 4000 BCE the Sumerians already had a specialised agricultural workforce that leaned heavily on irrigation and harvested in spring using teams of three. Egyptian growers drew their water from the Nile. Livestock has an equally deep history: dogs were domesticated in East Asia roughly 15,000 years ago, goats and sheep in Asia around 8000 BCE, pigs by 7000 BCE in the Middle East and China, and horses from about 4000 BCE.
The job title shifts with the economy. In developed countries a farmer usually means someone with an ownership stake who supplies land or management, while those contributing only labour are farmhands; people who work an absent owner's land for a share of the crop are sharecroppers. Specialists get their own names: ranchers in the United States and graziers in Australia and Britain for grazing herds, truck farmers or market gardeners for mixed vegetables, and the American dirt farmer for someone working their own plot.
In poorer or pre-industrial settings most farming is subsistence work built on crop rotation, seed saving and slash and burn, and its practitioners are often dismissed as peasants. The same methods on a small patch in a wealthy country might mark someone as a hobby gardener, or as an organic grower selling to choosy local shoppers. Women make up over 40 percent of agricultural employees worldwide.
Organised farmers carry real political weight. The American Grange pushed back against railroad and agribusiness interests in the early twentieth century, and France's FNSEA has campaigned hard on genetically modified food. The International Federation of Agricultural Producers speaks for over 600 million farmers through 120 national unions in 79 countries. Youth programmes include 4-H, started in 1902 with about 6.5 million members, and the National FFA Organization, founded in 1925 for school students.
Source: Farmer
