Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
Agriculture encompasses crop and livestock production, aquaculture, and forestry for food and non-food products. [1] Agriculture was a key factor in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to live in the cities.
Farmers are often members of local, regional, or national farmers' unions or agricultural producers' organizations and can exert significant political influence. The Grange movement in the United States was effective in advancing farmers' agendas, especially against railroad and agribusiness interests early in the 20th century.
Agricultural productivity is an important component of food security. [4] Increasing agricultural productivity through sustainable practices can be an important way to decrease the amount of land needed for farming and slow environmental degradation and climate change through processes like deforestation .
Most family farmers seem to agree on what led to their plight: government policy. In the years after the New Deal, they say, the United States set a price floor for farmers, essentially ensuring they received a minimum wage for the crops they produced. But the government began rolling back this policy in the 1970s, and now the global market ...
Farmers demanded relief as the agricultural depression grew steadily worse in the middle 1920s, while the rest of the economy flourished. Farmers had a powerful voice in Congress, and demanded federal subsidies, most notably the McNary–Haugen Farm Relief Bill. It was passed but vetoed by President Calvin Coolidge. [69]
The agricultural policy of the United States is composed primarily of the periodically renewed federal U.S. farm bills.The Farm Bills have a rich history which initially sought to provide income and price support to US farmers and prevent them from adverse global as well as local supply and demand shocks.
The most important factors for a farming site are climate, soil, nutrients and water resources. Of the four, water and soil conservation are the most amenable to human intervention. When farmers grow and harvest crops, they remove some nutrients from the soil.
American Farmland Trust (AFT) is a non-profit organization in the United States with a mission to protect farmland, promote environmentally sound farming practices, and keep farmers on the land. AFT is staffed by farmers, policy experts, researchers, and scientists, and governed by a board of directors.