Timeline.
A brief history of Global Agriculture
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History of Global Agriculture
Millenia BC
A farmer ploughing a paddock1750 - Start of the Industrial Revolution
Invention of the Steam Engine
Thomas Savery invents the first steam engine
1750 - 1900 : Farm machinery starting to replace animals
1910 - Broadacre farming
1920 - Chemical based farming
1930 - Monocultures
1940 - Seed hybridisation
1950 - Mechanisation / Factory farming
1960 - Supermarkets / Green revolution, Farm debt
1970 - Globalisation in food production / Trade agreements
1980 - Corporatisation of global food chain
1990 - Genetic modification of seed crops
2000 - Patenting of food crops
2010 - Upholding of patent law by courts
2010 - 2020 : Consolidation of corporate players in global agribusiness and food retailing
Monsanto (US) is the world’s largest seed company with 23% of the global proprietary seed market.
2020 and beyond?
Prior to the 1900’s, our food security needs were met by traditional farming practices which had not changed for millennia. Those practices were founded on organic principles and included methods such as crop rotations and seed saving.
Since the 1900’s, the world began moving toward industrial scale farming practices. The focus became increasingly on chemically-based agriculture, factory farming, seed manipulation, patents and the globalisation and corporatisation of the seed and food chain. The legal system and governments also began to play significant roles in shaping the future of global agriculture.
Perhaps it could be argued that there is no other human endeavour that has undergone such rapid and profound changes as global agriculture has over the last 100 years.
Since that first seed of wheat was collected and saved in Egypt thousands of years ago, subsequently introducing agriculture to the world to us as we know it today, humanity has essentially not changed its model for food security and food production.
