MSC 316 Lecture Notes - Lecture 14: Norman Borlaug, Selective Breeding, Food Desert
Document Summary
Agricultural productivity: maximizing yield: us farming: increased productivity. Increase in productivity explains why the percent of people in the farming industry has gotten so low. While agricultural output has increased, the number of farms in the us has declined. Fewer farms are necessary: world farming. World is producing more than enough food theoretically to feed everyone. Asia has seen the most drastic increase in productivity. Africa is the only outlier that has seen a decrease. Major exporters: us, canada, argentina, australia, ukraine, Germany: this handful of countries are main support for, what has led to productivity increase food. Do not need as many people to work in farms. 1935: only 11% of farms in us had electricity. 1960: 97% of farms in us had electricity. 1960: only 74% of farms had telephones. 1913 the process to fix nitrogen into a reduced form was deployed. Use of fertilizers increased by 4. 5% per year until 1980.