Modern Agriculture

 

Last weekend I attended the "Old Time Power Show" at Antique Acres, near Waterloo, Iowa.  This is a living museum whose annual exhibition showcases the development of modern agriculture, from horse drawn equipment and steam powered threshing engines to present day diesel tractors.   I wrote a Facebook post encouraging all my local friends to attend this event and take their kids. Why?   I believe that the three most important events in human history are (1) The discovery of the use of fire,  (2)  The invention of agriculture, and (3)  The mechanization of agriculture.   If you feel that item 3 does not merit a place alongside the other two, then consider this:    In the U.S. in 1800,  90% of the population farmed to feed themselves and the other 10%.   Today in the U.S.,  less than 1% still farms, and yet we are the world's largest exporter of grain.
     The discovery of fire and the invention of agriculture did not happen within the memory of people still living and did not happen in Iowa.   But mechanization of agriculture did.   The very first tractor factory in the world opened in 1892--in Waterloo, Iowa.  When I worked at John Deere Tractor works in 1958, they made only relatively small, two cylinder tractors and a typical farm was 80-160 acres.  Today, one of my neighbors farms over 6,000 acres, and the countryside is becoming as depopulated as the moon. This is the most radical transformation in human history and it began within my own great grandfather's lifetime.  
   No matter where you live, it there is some museum near you which displays the agriculture methods of the recent past,  go there and take your children.  What they will see is the change that defines the modern world.   Because very little of what we call the modern world could exist if 90% of the population still was needed for food production.