WASHINGTON, D.C. (RFD News) — Agriculture has evolved dramatically over the last century, but many of the industry’s biggest breakthroughs came long before today’s precision technology.
Former Smithsonian curator Peter Liebhold told AgInfo.Net that innovations such as tractors, fertilizers and electricity fundamentally changed how farmers produced food.
“Gasoline powered vehicles, combines tractors, it’s also the notion of fertilizer, it’s notion of pesticides, it’s notion of hybrids, hybrid animals, hybrid seeds, all very critical. Agriculture transforms from being extensive, where you want more food, you pile up more land, to being intensive, where you start to increase yield per acre. The advent of lightweight tractors in the beginning of the 1900s was made possible by factories making on assembly lines inexpensive equipment. The price continually dropped, became affordable so that many farmers could buy it and help revolutionize agriculture. Many different aspects of agriculture were affected by the advent of electricity. Dairy parlor without electricity would be completely different.”
The first commercially successful farm tractor entered the market in 1901. It was fueled by gasoline and powered by a three cylinder engine.
