Agriculture in the United States

The American South has historically been a large producer of cotton, tobacco, and rice, but it has declined in agricultural production over the past century.

The U.S. has led developments in seed improvement, such as hybridization, and in expanding uses for crops from the work of George Washington Carver to bioplastics and biofuels.

The mechanization of farming and intensive farming have been major themes in U.S. history, including John Deere's steel plow, Cyrus McCormick's mechanical reaper, Eli Whitney's cotton gin, and the widespread success of the Fordson tractor and the combine harvester.

Corn, turkeys, tomatoes, potatoes, peanuts, and sunflower seeds constitute some of the major holdovers from the agricultural endowment of the Americas.

Also very common in the antebellum Midwest was farming corn while raising hogs, complementing each other especially since it was difficult to get grain to market before the canals and railroads.

After the "wheat frontier" had passed through an area, more diversified farms including dairy cattle generally took its place.

In the early colonial South, raising tobacco and cotton was common, especially through the use of slave labor until the Civil War.

The introduction and broad adoption of scientific agriculture since the mid-19th century contributed to economic growth in the United States.

This development was facilitated by the Morrill Act and the Hatch Act of 1887 which established in each state a land-grant university (with a mission to teach and study agriculture) and a federally funded system of agricultural experiment stations and cooperative extension networks which place extension agents in each state.

By 1973 soybeans were the United States' "number one cash crop, and leading export commodity, ahead of both wheat and corn".

Later, "Sodbuster" and "Swampbuster" restrictions written into federal farm programs starting in the 1970s reversed a decades-long trend of habitat destruction that began in 1942 when farmers were encouraged to plant all possible land in support of the war effort.

As of 2004:[20] The major livestock industries in the United States: Goats, horses, turkeys and bees are also raised, though in lesser quantities.

For agricultural workers that sustain an injury, the resultant loss of work has implications on physical health and financial stability.

A large part of the U.S. farm workforce is made up of migrant and seasonal workers, many of them recent immigrants from Latin America.

Farmworkers in the United States have unique demographics, wages, working conditions, organizing, and environmental aspects.

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health recommends the use of roll over protection structures on tractors to reduce the risk of overturn-related fatal injuries.

[45]Farming is one of the few industries in which families (who often share the work and live on the premises) are also at risk for injuries, illness, and death.

The most common causes of fatal farm-related youth injuries involve machinery, motor vehicles, or drowning.

Agricultural workers are at high risk for being exposed to dangerous levels of pesticides, whether or not they are directly working with the chemicals.

[51] Migrant workers, especially women, are at higher risk for health issues associated with pesticide exposure due to lack of training or appropriate safety precautions.

[56][57] Farmers are among the most likely to die by suicide, in comparison to other occupations, according to a study published in January 2020 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

[58] Researchers at the University of Iowa found that farmers, and others in the agricultural trade, had the highest suicide rate of all occupations from 1992 to 2010, the years covered in a 2017 study.

[58] This echoed a study conducted the previous year by the CDC[59] and another undertaken by the National Rural Health Association (NRHA).

In the years after the New Deal, they say, the United States set a price floor for farmers, essentially ensuring they received a minimum wage for the crops they produced.

But the government began rolling back this policy in the 1970s, and now the global market largely determines the price they get for their crops.

Big farms can make do with lower prices for crops by increasing their scale; a few cents per gallon of cow's milk adds up if you have thousands of cows.—Time, November 27, 2019Climate change and agriculture are complexly related processes.

[61][63] USDA research indicates that these climatic changes will lead to a decline in yield and nutrient density in key crops, as well as decreased livestock productivity.