An employee picking cotton. Midway through the 1940s, the first versions that were successful were released, and each one was capable of replacing 50 hand pickers.
Mechanised agriculture, also known as agricultural mechanisation, is the practise of doing agricultural tasks using technology and equipment, ranging from basic hand tools to more complex, motorised equipment and machinery.[1] In the contemporary era, motorised technology has taken over many agricultural tasks that were formerly performed by hand labour or working animals like oxen, horses, and mules.
There are many instances of the employment of tools like the hoe and the plough throughout the whole history of agriculture. Since the Industrial Revolution, machines have been gradually being integrated into farming, reducing the amount of labor-intensive tasks.
A aspect of this technical advancement in agricultural automation is agricultural mechanisation.[2] The transition from manual tools to animal traction to motorised mechanisation to digital equipment to robots with artificial intelligence (AI) may be summed up as a gradual one.[3] These developments may improve working conditions, enhance revenues, enable more careful agricultural, livestock, aquaculture, and forestry management, lessen the strain of farming, and provide new rural business possibilities.[3] The employment of tractors, trucks, combine harvesters, innumerable varieties of agricultural equipment, aeroplanes, helicopters (for aerial application), and other vehicles is considered to be mechanised agriculture today. Even computers are used in precision agriculture, along with GPS guidance, satellite navigation, and satellite images, to boost yields. Motorised machinery are progressively being replaced by new digital technology that automates diagnostic and decision-making.[2]
Mechanisation was one of the large factors responsible for urbanisation and industrial economies. Besides improving production efficiency, mechanisation encourages large scale production and sometimes can improve the quality of farm produce. On the other hand, it can cause environmental degradation (such as pollution, deforestation, and soil erosion), especially if it is applied shortsightedly rather than holistically.
Jethro Tull's seed drill (c. 1701) was a mechanical seed spacing and depth placing device that increased crop yields and saved seed. It was an important factor in the British Agricultural Revolution.[4]
Since the beginning of agriculture threshing was done by hand with a flail, requiring a great deal of labour. The threshing machine, which was invented in 1794 but not widely used for several more decades, simplified the operation and allowed the use of animal power. Before the invention of the grain cradle (ca. 1790) an able bodied labourer could reap about one quarter acre of wheat in a day using a sickle. It was estimated that each of Cyrus McCormick's horse-pulled reapers (ca. 1830s) freed up five men for military service in the US Civil War.[5] Later innovations included raking and binding machines. By 1890 two men and two horses could cut, rake and bind 20 acres of wheat per day.[6]
In the 1880s the reaper and threshing machine were combined into the combine harvester. These machines required large teams of horses or mules to pull. Steam power was applied to threshing machines in the late 19th century. There were steam engines that moved around on wheels under their own power for supplying temporary power to stationary threshing machines. These were called road engines, and Henry Ford seeing one as a boy was inspired to build an automobile.[7]
With internal combustion came the first modern tractors in the early 1900s, becoming more popular after the Fordson tractor (ca. 1917). At first reapers and combine harvesters were pulled by teams of horses or tractors, but in the 1930s self powered combines were developed.[8]
Advertising for motorised equipment in farm journals during this era did its best to compete against horse-drawn methods with economic arguments, extolling common themes such as that a tractor "eats only when it works", that one tractor could replace many horses, and that mechanisation could allow one man to get more work done per day than he ever had before. The horse population in the US began to decline in the 1920s after the conversion of agriculture and transportation to internal combustion. Peak tractor sales in the US were around 1950.[9] In addition to saving labour, this freed up much land previously used for supporting draft animals.[10] The greatest period of growth in agricultural productivity in the US was from the 1940s to the 1970s, during which time agriculture was benefiting from internal combustion powered tractors and combine harvesters, chemical fertilisers and the green revolution.[11]
Although U.S. farmers of corn, wheat, soy, and other commodity crops had replaced most of their workers with harvesting machines and combines by the 1950s enabling them to efficiently cut and gather grains, growers of produce continued to rely on human pickers to avoid the bruising of the product in order to maintain the blemish-free appearance demanded by customers.[12] The continuous supply of undocumented workers from Latin America that harvest the crops for low wages further suppressed the need for mechanisation. As the number of undocumented workers has continued to decline since reaching its peak in 2007 due to increased border patrols and an improving Mexican economy, the industry is increasing the use of mechanisation.[12] Proponents argue that mechanisation will boost productivity and help to maintain low food prices while farm worker advocates assert that it will eliminate jobs and will give an advantage to large growers who are able to afford the required equipment.[12]
Motorized mechanization adoption trends[edit]
Motorized mechanization has substantially expanded at global level, although it has been unevenly and inadequately adopted particularly in sub-Saharan Africa.[2] Mechanization is limited to a range of operations including harvesting and weeding and is rarely used for fruit and vegetable production across the globe.[13]
Tractor adoption spread widely when around 24 million draught animals were replaced by tractors in the United States between 1910 and 1960, making them the primary source of agricultural power.[14] Tractors were initially used in the United Kingdom in the 1930s, although Japan and certain European nations (including Denmark, France, Germany, Spain, and the former Yugoslavia) did not undergo agricultural revolution until about 1955. After that, motorised mechanisation swiftly became the norm, entirely replacing animal traction.[15] Farming using tractors sparked advancements in other agricultural technology and equipment that significantly reduced labor-intensive activities and allowed farmers to do them more quickly.[16] Later, motorised equipment also became more prevalent in several Asian and Latin American nations.[13]
The only place where adoption of motorised mechanisation has not advanced over the last several decades is Sub-Saharan Africa.[17][18] A research in 11 nations that found that just 18% of the studied households had access to tractor-powered appliances demonstrates the low degree of mechanisation in the area. The remaining ones either utilise basic hand tools (48%) or machinery that is driven by animals (33%).[18]
Impact on employment[edit]
Concerns about the potential adverse social effects of labor-saving technology progress, notably job displacement leading to unemployment, have existed at least since the early nineteenth century.[2] However, historical facts do not support concerns that automation would enhance worker productivity to the point where it will lead to widespread unemployment.[2] Instead, labor-saving technology innovation and adoption take a while, and the automation of one task frequently leads to an increase in the demand for workers to perform other tasks.[2] The variables influencing automation's adoption will decide how directly it affects employment.[19]
Automation is unlikely to lead to unemployment if growing earnings and a labour shortage drive its adoption.[19] Agricultural employment may also be boosted by automation. For instance, it may make it possible for farms to boost their output in response to rising food demand. Increasing agricultural labour productivity progressively frees up agricultural employees, providing them the chance to take up new employment in other sectors, such as industry and services, as part of the structural restructuring of society.[2] On the other side, forced promotion of automation, such as via government subsidies, may result in growing unemployment and declining or stagnant wages.[19] The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) cautions countries against introducing unfair subsidies for automation since doing so might lead to more unemployment.[2] FAO also cautions against limiting automation on the pretence that doing so would save jobs and incomes,[3] since doing so runs the danger of reducing agriculture's productivity and competitiveness.[2] Instead, it is advised to focus on fostering an environment that will encourage automation adoption, particularly by small-scale agricultural producers, women, and young people, while providing social protection to workers with the lowest levels of skill, who are more likely to lose their jobs during the transition.[3]
