In less developed countries, approximately 80% of the population works in agriculture. Today, almost half of the planet’s inhabitants are actively working in this field. In North America, a major food exporting region, agriculture employs less than two percent of the population. As for the United States, it is estimated that for every person working in agriculture there are 125 people being fed. This data illustrates the increased productivity made possible by applying science and technology to agriculture.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization report for the year 2000 introduced a retrospective of the evolution of agriculture over the past 50 years. To illustrate the increase in work productivity, it mentions that one person, in the era of manual agriculture, could produce one ton of cereal, thirty tons in 1950 and in 2000, 500 tons. A similar evolution occurred in other sectors of agriculture and livestock breeding. These gains in productivity were made possible thanks to a long evolution of agricultural practices that have taken place since the birth of agriculture some 10,000 years ago. If evolution was interrupted, it has considerably accelerated in modern times. Farm work, for all intents and purposes was originally and exclusively manual, then was in part replaced by animal traction and once again by mechanical traction. Tools have become amazingly more precise and refined since the sickle and all the way to the combine harvester to name just a few examples. Plant and animal selection, initially performed on a trial and error basis, has made a gigantic leap forward with the discovery by Mendel, the renowned botanist, of the fundamental laws of genetics. In fact, agriculture needed thousands of years of practice before discovering that plants, in order to grow, drew substances from the soil, which needed to be restored if fertility was to be maintained. Specialized work, which is the result of more specialized operations, is another major factor in increased productivity.

From the moment the agricultural community started selling its products to various markets, farmers had, to stay alive and in some cases to prosper, to stay abreast of all the latest technologies applicable to their field. As time went on, experience thaught them that those who used less productive technology would not survive in the long term and those who introduced it first would, for a limited time, profit financially from this technological first. However, as soon as new technology surfaces in the industry, the price of the end product is subsequently adjusted, which means prices are dropped in proportion to the lower production cost. Thus the reasoning behind the lower prices for agricultural products over the past half century in spite of the incredibly high demand for food generated by the ever-growing world population, which increased by four billion over the past 55 years.

Some people condemn the kind of agriculture practiced in developed countries as being productivist. A characterization that admonishes farming for considering productivity above environmental consequences. This type of criticism is obviously misinformed since pre-industrial farming, still practiced on a wide scale in many parts of the world, is infinitely more damaging to the environment than modern agriculture. For example, to access farm land, woodlands are often burned to the ground and what remains provides for four or maybe fives years of production, until the soil is no longer fertile for lack of fertilization, and the process begins again a few kilometres farther. While modern farming technology not only contributes to increasing work productivity as well as soil productivity, it also serves to protect the environment. Modern agricultural productivity makes food more accessible to those less fortunate. And for these reasons, it will not, thank goodness, be replaced by a less productive type of agriculture.