Agriculture is the most ancient mechanism of civilization. Before people were cultivating crops and animals instead of harvesting them from the wild, they stayed on the move in a constant search for food. Once they learned how to produce meat and plants in the same place for a period of years, civilizations and cities sprang forth. That transition from hunter-gatherer to farmer and homesteader was the spark that built the entire human society.

William Jennings Bryan described this best when he said, “Burn down your cities and leave our farms, and your cities will spring up again as if by magic; but destroy our farms and the grass will grow in the streets of every city in the country.”

So the vocation of producing food for one’s own and family and for thousands of other families is a noble, albeit underappreciated, way to earn a living. And sadly, most consumers today just assume that their food supplies will never run out, but will instead continuously re-stock themselves through the wonders of trucks and trains, rather than tractors and tillers.

The reality is, of course, that it takes an incredibly complex and meticulous system to ensure that we all have that never-ending supply of food at an acceptable price, available at a moment’s notice inside a sprawling 24-hour store.

Agriculture has developed far beyond the smiling man in the straw hat and bib overalls. It’s a heavily mechanized, computerized, and scientific industry that rivals anything manufacturing has to offer, and it does so in the face of ever-changing weather, consumer tastes, economic pressures, and countless other factors.

Keeping that amazing machine running is such a massive undertaking that the average citizen–read that as the average person who eats–has no idea of what is involved. So let’s skim through just a few of the things that create the inner workings of our agricultural system, the things that make it possible for thousands to feed millions.

The Equipment

Perhaps the most striking thing about farming today compared to 50 or 100 years ago is the level of mechanization, and the sheer size of the apparatus that till, seed, and harvest our farm land. Today’s farmer sits atop a machine that cost well into the six figures, with countless moving parts, computerized functions, and power components. These vehicles clip along across acres and acres of ground during the planting and harvest seasons, doing as much work as what innumerable teams of horses or mules could have done just a few decades ago.

But they aren’t just huge. These machines are impressive feats of engineering themselves. Because breakdowns can easily take the implement out of service for a matter of days, it’s critical to keep them in operation. They come from the factory built of more than just steel.

Specialized alloys formed into wear products for agriculture compose their most heavily stressed parts, making sure that the implement components with the greatest potential for failure remain operative even under the most demanding conditions. Their movements and settings are often controlled by computerized systems that pinpoint the use of fertilizers and pesticides for maximum efficacy with minimal cost and pollution.

The Products

Forget everything you know about the amber waves of grain or the happy cow munching contentedly on a sprig of hay. The plants and animals on today’s farms are the products of generations of research and breeding that have led to complex genetic profiles, built to perform at the highest possible level in a given situation. Deep in the heart of Texas, the genes of heat-tested Brahma cattle have been bred into the herds, reducing the stress of the southwestern heat. The seemingly endless corn fields of Iowa and Nebraska are populated by plants chosen carefully for maximum yield, optimum disease resistance, and ideal utilization on the consumer’s supper table, derived from breeding programs that never skip a season of work.

The processing is just as impressive. Lettuce is picked on a California vegetable farm, fertilized by sustainable organic fertilizer, and hits someone’s fork on Long Island with incredible speed and quality. A huge dairy barn in Pennsylvania churns out high-quality milk that is pasteurized and homogenized, then packaged and sent west for a 2,000-mile journey to someone’s coffee cup at a neighborhood cafe in Seattle. All of this takes place while you work, play, and even sleep. It rumbles past you in a train or a truck, sometimes fresh, sometimes frozen, but always on the move.

The Markets

Once a product is ready to sell, the process is really just beginning. While you may enjoy a regular visit to a local farmers’ market or roadside stand, the fact of the matter is that the overwhelming majority of what you eat is sold through an intricate marketing system that monitors prices all over the world, taking them into account with everything from weather to the price of oil.

Futures markets help farmers reduce risk by giving them the option to lock in a price ahead of time. Those futures are bought and sold on markets like any other good. Meanwhile, essential commodities like pork bellies for bacon and frozen orange juice leave the portfolios of investors teetering on that heady line between fortune and failure.

Even without all this complexity, the most basic unit of agriculture, a family farm, has marketing decisions to make almost daily. Should the cattle producer sell calves this fall as stocker animals? Or should the cattle stay on the farm until spring and go as feeders? What will the weather in Russia mean for American grain markets and, in turn, for the cost of feed for the thousands of chickens found on the typical poultry farm?

We’ve just barely scratched the surface of what it takes to keep the world food system in operation. It is an overwhelming undertaking to attempt to go any further. We haven’t even gotten to the most essential part, the people behind agriculture. The farmers, ranchers, veterinarians, researchers, scientists, investors, and educators who keep this system working have the greatest impact of all.

Most of us have no idea of what’s behind the food that we eat, and farmers are okay with that. They’ll continue to innovate, improve, and improvise to find ways to keep those shelves, coolers, and steam tables stocked with safe, nutritious food.

Shift Frequency © 2017 – The Amazing Way Farmers Feed The World