Agriculture in America

How the American agriculture industry has changed

The American agriculture industry has gone through massive developments over the past century. While agriculture in the earlier days in America was focused in labor, the current trends use sophisticated equipments for farm work. Agriculture took up more than half the work force in the earlier days while now; the ratio has come down to less than one-fourth. From use of work force in huge farms, the scenario has now changed to smaller farms with high productivity using fewer work forces. The efficiency of the US agriculture technology has grown enormously over the last century. From dependency on farm animals, the dependency has now shifted to mechanization.

The importance of agriculture in the US economy

It would not be wrong to say to that the recovery of the American economy is being led by the agricultural industry, thanks to the technologies that have been developed in farm equipments and farming methods. The US government has largely supported the agricultural sector by providing subsidies and loan write offs. The innovative agricultural research that is being carried out underlines the importance of technological developments in the field of agriculture.

Use of renewable energy technology in US farms

The agricultural industry in America is adopting energy conserving equipments by the use of devices that run on renewable energy such as solar power and wind energy. Solar energy used for heating water for cattle, drying crops and heating animal shelters. The developments in the wind energy developments technology have also been enormous in the recent years. More than 8,500 farms are using solar power to generate a major portion of their power. Wind turbines are being used in more than 1,400 operations. Surveys have showed that more than 80% of the American farmers are ready to use solar power and install solar panels in their farms to generate power for the farm operations.

Solar powered farm equipments

Some of the most useful developments in the US farm sector, which uses solar energy, are solar powered grass mowers and solar powered tractors. When the solar panels in the tractors are fully charged, they run all day. They can be used in all operations of the farm. Cultivation is possible for four hours at a stretch and the rototiller can be run for two hours. The new technological developments focus on reducing the cost of solar powered farm equipments so that they can be made accessible to even an average farmer.

Wind powered farm equipments

The main equipments that can be run on wind energy in farms are wind turbines, wind pumps and windmills. These equipments convert the wind energy into a different kind of energy like electricity or mechanical energy. Many companies in America supply wind powered equipments to agricultural farms. Although the potential for development of wind technology in America is huge, it is lagging behind in the production. As of now, China is the biggest producer of wind power in the world. Large farms in the United States can make of wind energy and save a lot of cost and increase efficiency.