THE ECONOMIC PAMPHLETEER: Perspectives on the past and future of agriculture

Abstract

First paragraphs:

The Harvard Business School defines trans­formational changes as “changes that are typically much grander in scope than incremental, adaptive changes. Very often, transformational change refers to a dramatic evolution of some basic structure of the business itself—its strategy, culture, organization, physical structure, supply chain, or processes” (Harvard Business School Online, 2020, “Transformational Change,” para. 1). I have lived and worked through a period of transforma­tional change in American agriculture. 

I was born in 1939 and raised on a small family farm in southwest Missouri. The only farm ma­chin­ery in our community during the early 1940s was a steam engine that powered a threshing ma­chine that moved from farm to farm at harvest time. Everything on the farm was done with horse power or human power. We milked cows by hand, picked corn by hand, and plowed fields and culti­vated crops with horse-drawn equipment. Like most farmers in the U.S. at the time, most farmers in our community milked a few cows, raised a few hogs and chickens, and grew at least enough feed grains and forages for their  livestock. They used crop rotations and livestock manure to manage pests and maintain soil fertility. Neighboring farmers shared their horse power and human power at harvest times—as a matter of necessity. I recall silo-filling crews of up to 40 farmers. Our commu­nity may have been a few years behind some other areas, but this was pretty much the state of agricul­ture in the U.S. in the late 1940s. . . .