Small farm life in the United States? Please help me by answering these questions? 1.What percentage of farms in the United States are family owned, and how has this percentage changed in the past fifty years? 2.What percentage of workers in the United States work on farms? 3.How has the growth of technology affected farm productivity and the need for farm workers?
Agriculture - 2 Answers
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1 :
According to the USDA statistics, 96% of farms are family owed and that hasn't changed much for many decades. The size of the farms has changed, however. Family farms now are much larger, sometimes with several families farming as one unit over several thousand acres. Not sure of the percentage, but USDA stats showed 778,000 farm workers in 2008. Technology has made farming more efficient and easier in some cases, but most of the labor-intensive jobs still remain. Computers still can't pick lettuce.
2 :
1. The vast majority of farms are family owned, including the so-called "factory farms." Large farms are not any less humane than small farms. 2. There are more people in prison than working on farms in the US. 3. Technology has dramatically decreased the need for workers, but not necessarily that much in the last 50 years. In terms of dairying, the milking machine is older than 50 years, but it allows one person to milk dozens of cows in the time it would take that same person to do it by hand. Selective breeding, better understanding of nutrition, improved veterinary care, and artificial insemination have all dramatically increased the per cow production
