How has the Farming Industry Changed?

How has farming changed the world? The innovation of farming has changed how people see the world. Farming has helped people grow and produce their food. Read more to find out how farming has changed.

The dairy industry was very different in the 1800s. The average herd size was around three cows per farm. If your farm had more than seven cows your farm was considered large. Farmers had to milk the cows by hand and that was very time consuming. Cows were used for their milk to make food. Cattle also played a large role in the fields. Cows would not be used for their meat as much as they are now but for their leather instead (Randall Lineback Breed Association).

Milk quality was not as good as it is now. Milk was transported in small containers about the size of a five gallon bucket. It did not cost a lot in today’s currency. The milk sometimes took over seventy-two hours to get to town. When it got to town, they did not test it for disease such as mastitis.

In addition, machinery was also very different in the 1800s. Farmers’ machinery was mostly their cows! They’d hook their cows up to plows and walk behind the cows holding the plow. Planting was a whole different story, farmers put buckets of seed on a wagon, pulled by a cow, and planted the seed by hand. Farmers would harvest the crop manually.

Farming looks very different nowadays. In 2003 the average herd size was 129. In 2020 the average herd increased to about 300 (Hanson). Cows live in better ventilated barns and heartier pastures. This has improved milk quality drastically. The milk is now tested for disease and anything that shouldn’t be in it. If a farmer has milk not up to quality standards in their tank, they have to dump their tank. About 3.7 million gallons get dumped yearly. Milk can go from the farm to the grocery store in less than twenty-four hours. There are automatic milking units and robots that milk your cows for you. The milking procedure is much more efficient and cleaner.

Cows are no longer used in the fields, tractors are. Farmers use combines and choppers to harvest their crops. Planters are used to plant seeds such as corn, beans, wheat, winter rye, alfalfa and much more. Now there are sprayers to fertilize the crops for a better income. Planes can also spray the fields. Certain types of fertilizer can kill the crop if it is used and the wrong crop. An example is if a farmer planted beans one year and corn another, the beans could come back. The farmer will spray to kill off the beans, but if the wrong spray is used it could also kill the corn. People cannot spray if it is windy, because the spray could drift into nearby fields and kill the crop.

Moving forward, the dairy industry has unlimited possibilities for the future. The dairy industry will continue to grow and the average herd size could be up to 700 or more. The way milk would be transported will most likely be fast. Milking has a possibility to be much faster and non-stop. Machinery will look very different in the future. There will most likely be self-driving tractors that will do the work in the fields without a person. Nobody knows what the future of farming will look like.

Farming has changed a lot over the years and it is still innovating. It went from cows in the fields to possibly self-driving tractors. Everything has come a long way. What will farming look like in the future?

Works Cited

Randall Lineback Breed Association. Squarespace, https://www.randalllineback.org/new-england-breeds-1800s-and-1900s.  9 March, 2023

Maureen Hanson, Dairy Herd Management. Farm Journal Inc, 1995, https://www.dairyherd.com/news/dairy-production/us-dairy-herd-hits-27-year-high. 9 March, 2023