The Industrialization Of Agriculture

A collection of papers providing coverage of the industrialization of agriculture in the USA and how it has forced changes in agricultural production, marketing and rural communities. The book examines the issues involved, covering economic theory and applied business literatures.

"A Halsted Press book." Includes bibliographical references.

A engaging analysis of food production in the United States emphasizing that sustainable agricultural development is important to community health.

Winner of the 2003 Saloutos Award for the best book on American agricultural history given by the Agricultural History Society During the early decades of the twentieth century, agricultural practice in America was transformed from a pre-industrial to an industrial activity. In this book Deborah Fitzgerald argues that farms became modernized in the 1920s because they adopted not only new machinery but also the financial, cultural, and ideological apparatus of industrialism. Fitzgerald examines how bankers and emerging professionals in engineering and economics pushed for systematic, businesslike farming. She discusses how factory practices served as a template for the creation across the country of industrial or corporate farms. She looks at how farming was affected by this revolution and concludes by following several agricultural enthusiasts to the Soviet Union, where the lessons of industrial farming were studied.

Originally published in 1986, this volume explores capitalization as an industrialisation indicator and the scale of capitalization in the areas of labor, cropping and in livestock and poultry. Finally the performance of agricultural industrialisation is discussed. This book offers a geographic view of what many consider the ultimate revolution in American agriculture: industrialization. The major technological advances and production increases associated with the process have become a significant event in world agricultural history, and for a long time the great majority of Americans accepted them as natural outcomes of economic and even cultural goals. But for the past thirty to forty years agricultural industrialization has proceeded from "a brisk walk to a dash," and the increased pressure on smaller farmers and farm-workers, as well as on natural resources, has become serious enough to evoke demands from many quarters for regulatory action. Yet compared to the magnitude of the event and the increasing concern, much is still unknown about its regional character and extent.

The Industrial Revolution transformed life in the United States from the way we eat, to the way we learn and communicate. This nine volume set "follows America's journey from the introduction of steam-powered engines to the emergence of the automobile. Each volume examines the role of a specific industry in the ascension of the United States to a position of global power in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Together, these volumes provide an unprecedented examination of a remarkable era, a time when America's corporate practices, politics, and culture--as well as the daily lives of its workers, families, and communities--were changed forever."--The back cover of v. 9 Overview/comparison.

In the last forty years, agriculture in the industrialised countries has undergone a revolution. That has dramatically increased yields, but it has also led to extensive rural depopulation; widespread degradation of the environment; contamination of food with agrochemicals and bacteria; more routine maltreatment of farm animals; and the undermining of Third World economies and livelihoods through unfair trading systems. Confronted by mounting evidence of environmental harm and social impacts, mainstream agronomistis and policy-makers have debatedly recognized the need for change. 'Sustainable agricultutre' has become the buzz phrase. But that can mean different things to different people. We have to ask: sustainable agriculture for whom? Whose interests are benefiting? And whose are suffering? At issue is the question of power – of who controls the land and what it produces. Most of the changes currently under discussion will actually strengthen the status quo and the underlying causes of the damage. The result will be greater intensification of farming, environmental destruction and inequality. There are no simple off-the-shelf alternatives to industrial agriculture. There are, however, groups throughout the world, who have contributed to this report and who are working together on a new approach. An agriculture that, in Wendell Berry's words, 'depletes neither soil nor people'. Originally published in 1992

A new edition of the leading textbook on the economic history of Britain since industrialization. Combining the expertise of more than thirty leading historians and economists, Volume 2 tracks the development of the British economy from late nineteenth-century global dominance to its early twenty-first century position as a mid-sized player in an integrated European economy. Each chapter provides a clear guide to the major controversies in the field and students are shown how to connect historical evidence with economic theory and how to apply quantitative methods. The chapters re-examine issues of Britain's relative economic growth and decline over the 'long' twentieth century, setting the British experience within an international context, and benchmark its performance against that of its European and global competitors. Suggestions for further reading are also provided in each chapter, to help students engage thoroughly with the topics being discussed.