How will farming change during the 21st Century?

Question

The 20th Century saw the marvels of mechinisation and other advances. But what do you think the future holds now for farming in next 50 years or 100 years? Will GM foods become widely accepted as being safe and beneficial to mankind, or will organic food become dominant in the western world,prefering higher levels of health over higher levels of yield? And what of the effects of global warming, and of an increasing environmental conscience of the Western World?

Answer 1

there will be no family farms the will all be corparte owned and operated

Answer 2

With dryer conditions due to global warming and groundwater shortages, agriculture east of the Rockies and west of the Mississippi will all but cease to be. Desertification will take over much of that same area. Organic food will not be possible as GM foods will take over any remaining agricultural lands. Due to higher oil prices, fertilizer costs and fuel for machinery will become too expensive completely eliminating the family farm in about 20 years. Large corporations will take over where the family farm is pushed aside and the food on your plate will be limited to what gives the company the biggest buck. Food that you may enjoy now but is unprofitable will simply no longer be available.

Answer 3

Due to the cost of fuel & fertilizer, local farms will reestablish themselves, driven by simple economics. Long-distance movement of food will become cost-prohibitive and the Washington apples eaten in Pennsylvania (which grows lots of its own) will cease to be, replaced by the local variety.

Family garden plots will become all the rage - practically all families will have at least one member that either tends the garden or does it actively as a "hobby" and the rising price of food will change what suburbia looks like; the lawns will start looking bushier, full of cabbage & tomatoes. This will not happen all at once - but social acceptance will follow the coming astronomical prices of fruits & vegetables.

Global warming, coupled with aquifer depletion (especially of the Oglala aquifer in the US) will seriously change water-use patterns & therefor farming. Water reuse such as through grey-water systems & reclaimed water will eventually become the norm in most of the US.

Dry-land farming techniques will keep much land in production but yields will be really different without the fossil water that will soon be gone (from Oglala & other aquifers across the country)

The driving forces will be scarcity: scarcity of water & scarcity of cheap fuel/cheap fertilizer. We will adapt to the new situations an perhaps even prosper but change is never without cost, especially moving from a time of abundance & ease to a time of sparsity & conforming to new situations.

;-)

Answer 4

Due to our changing climate we can't possibly keep growing our food in far away countries and shipping it around the world so I can see food will be grown locally and organically. Think there will be a great resurgence in family farms to supply local areas with the food they need. Lets just hope we have enough farmers left to do this when it becomes really necessary.

Answer 5

Lots of technology. Robot milkers are getting to be almost commonplace, robotic tractors are very close, nanotechnology probably within ten years will replace chemical pesticides (and make organic almost obsolete). Most people still won't have a clue where their food comes from.

Answer 6

Corn as fuel, organic food, I belive American farmes can , will, should, and deserve to make a comeback.

Answer 7

flood will take over, forget ur farming, go to higher lands.