Modern Agriculture

Since 1900, agriculture in the developed world has seen large rises in productivity as human labor has been replaced by mechanization and assisted by synthetic fertilizers and pesticides and selective breeding, as well as social and environmental concerns such as water pollution, biofuels, genetically modified organisms, tariffs, and farm subsidies. Organic farming has developed in the 20th century to be a consciously pesticide-free alternative. Food production must be in harmony with available natural resources, available technology, and requirements of societies. There are many examples of this, including monoculture and biodiversity, biotechnology, factory farm concept, verticulture, etc. Several factors affect the sustainable future of agriculture: economics, concerning the conversion of farmlands, the farming outcome, the productivity, and market competition; social elements like illegal works, age of farmers, operators, and local community dynamics; and environmental issues like recycling of waste, use of heavy fertilizer and pest agents and mechanization. This chapter is part of Module 2: History of Agriculture in Mediterranean Basin and Mediterranean Diet.

This video is licensed under the CC BY-NC-SA license.