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Whats easy to forget is that we Live in a very unusual age, in which Americans do not have to worry about starvation on their door step. 

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Whats easy to forget is that we Live in a very unusual age, in which Americans do not have to worry about starvation on their door step. 

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I felt this was an important quote to include because it reinforces the benefits of technological advancements to our food supply. This puts the need for these technologies in other countries into perspective as well. Other countries all over this world need technology such as what we see in this video, and they do not have the same access to it that we do and suffer famine because of it. American's do not have to suffer the same trials and therefore should work towards being able to assist other countries with their struggles.

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Every technological innovation is helping farmers produce more food. 

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Every technological innovation is helping farmers produce more food. 

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I found this quote important because it is true. The more technology advances the better farmers can do their jobs, and therefore they produce more food. Technological advancements give farmers the tools to be able to plant twice, three times, or more what they would have been able to produce in the beginning. Thus, surplus farming. While farming to a surplus is not always a good thing, if used properly the surpluses we create could be used to provide food to countries in need.

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Agriculture Technology | National Institute of Food and Agriculture

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Modern farms and agricultural operations work far differently than those a few decades ago, primarily because of advancements in technology, including sensors, devices, machines, and information technology. Today's agriculture routinely uses sophisticated technologies such as robots, temperature and moisture sensors, aerial images, and GPS technology.

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Benefits to driving straight lines would include the operators ability to even to drive at night, chemicals are more efficiently applied, because there are no gaps or double coverage between passes. 

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Benefits to driving straight lines would include the operators ability to even to drive at night, chemicals are more efficiently applied, because there are no gaps or double coverage between passes. 

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I find this quote important to the overall message behind this episode because it gives you a look into the world of a farmer. They use the technology they have to be able to work long into the nights and be able to make straight rows when cultivating and planting and the technology they have now allows them to do those things. It also allows them to be able to plant and harvest at a faster rate, getting their crops out to the public faster than they could have years ago.

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Policy Horizons Canada worked with futurist and data visualizer Michell Zappa of Envisioning to produce a report called MetaScan 3: Emerging Technologies and accompanying infographics . We are reproducing the summary for emerging agriculture technologies .

http://www.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/nvmms.sci.eng.swarm/swarm-robotics/
Below are technologies related to agricultural and natural manufacturing under four key areas of accelerating change: Sensors, Food, Automation and Engineering.

Sensors help agriculture by enabling real-time traceability and diagnosis of crop, livestock and farm machine states.

Food may benefit directly from genetic tailoring and potentially from producing meat directly in a lab.

Automation will help agriculture via large-scale robotic and microrobots to check and maintain crops at the plant level.

Engineering involves technologies that extend the reach of agriculture to new means, new places and new areas of the economy. Of particular interest will be synthetic biology, which allows efficiently reprogramming unicellular life to make fuels, byproducts accessible from organic chemistry and smart devices.

We have included predictions based on consultation with experts of when each technology will be scientifically viable (the kind of stuff that Google, governments, and universities develop), mainstream (when VCs and startups widely invest in it), and financially viable (when the technology is generally available on Kickstarter).

Sensors

Air & soil sensors : Fundamental additions to the automated farm, these sensors would enable a real time understanding of current farm, forest or body of water conditions.

Scientifically viable in 2013; mainstream and financially viable in 2015.

Equipment telematics : Allows mechanical devices such as tractors to warn mechanics that a failure is likely to occur soon. Intra-tractor communication can be used as a rudimentary "farm swarm" platform.

Scientifically viable in 2013; mainstream in 2016; and financially viable in 2017.

Livestock biometrics : Collars with GPS, RFID and biometrics can automatically identify and relay vital information about the livestock in real time.

Scientifically viable in 2017; mainstream and financially viable in 2020.

Crop sensors : Instead of prescribing field fertilization before application, high-resolution crop sensors inform application equipment of correct amounts needed. Optical sensors or drones are able to identify crop health across the field (for example, by using infra-red light).

Scientifically viable in 2015; mainstream in 2018; and financially viable in 2019.

Infrastructural health sensors : Can be used for monitoring vibrations and material conditions in buildings, bridges, factories, farms and other infrastructure. Coupled with an intelligent network, such sensors could feed crucial information back to maintenance crews or robots.

Scientifically viable in 2021; mainstream in 2025; and financially viable in 2027.

Food

Genetically designed food : The creation of entirely new strains of food animals and plants in order to better address biological and physiological needs. A departure from genetically modified food, genetically designed food would be engineered from the ground up.

Scientifically viable in 2016; mainstream in 2021; and financially viable in 2022.

In vitro meat : Also known as cultured meat or tubesteak, it is a flesh product that has never been part of a complete, living animal. Several current research projects are growing in vitro meat experimentally, although no meat has yet been produced for public consumption.

Scientifically viable in 2017; mainstream in 2024; and financially viable in 2027.

Automation

Variable rate swath control : Building on existing geolocation technologies, future swath control could save on seed, minerals, fertilizer and herbicides by reducing overlapping inputs. By pre-computing the shape of the field where the inputs are to be used, and by understanding the relative productivity of different areas of the field, tractors or agbots can procedurally apply inputs at variable rates throughout the field.

Scientifically viable in 2013; mainstream in 2014; and financially viable in 2016.

Rapid iteration selective breeding : The next generation of selective breeding where the end-result is analyzed quantitatively and improvements are suggested algorithmically.

Scientifically viable in 2014; mainstream and financially viable in 2017.

Agricultural robots : Also known as agbots, these are used to automate agricultural processes, such as harvesting, fruit picking, ploughing, soil maintenance, weeding, planting, irrigation, etc.

Scientifically viable in 2018; mainstream in 2020; and financially viable in 2021.

Precision agriculture : Farming management based on observing (and responding to) intra-field variations. With satellite imagery and advanced sensors, farmers can optimize returns on inputs while preserving resources at ever larger scales. Further understanding of crop variability, geolocated weather data and precise sensors should allow improved automated decision-making and complementary planting techniques.

Scientifically viable in 2019; mainstream in 2023; and financially viable in 2024.

Robotic farm swarms : The hypothetical combination of dozens or hundreds of agricultural robots with thousands of microscopic sensors, which together would monitor, predict, cultivate and extract crops from the land with practically no human intervention. Small-scale implementations are already on the horizon.

Scientifically viable in 2023; mainstream and financially viable in 2026.

Engineering

Closed ecological systems : Ecosystems that do not rely on matter exchange outside the system. Such closed ecosystems would theoretically transform waste products into oxygen, food and water in order to support life-forms inhabiting the system. Such systems already exist in small scales, but existing technological limitations prevent them from scaling.

Scientifically viable in 2015; mainstream in 2020; and financially viable in 2021.

Synthetic biology : Synthetic biology is about programming biology using standardized parts as one programs computers using standardized libraries today. Includes the broad redefinition and expansion of biotechnology, with the ultimate goals of being able to design, build and remediate engineered biological systems that process information, manipulate chemicals, fabricate materials and structures, produce energy, provide food, and maintain and enhance human health and our environment.

Scientifically viable in 2013; mainstream in 2023; and financially viable in 2024.

Vertical farming : A natural extension of urban agriculture, vertical farms would cultivate plant or animal life within dedicated or mixed-use skyscrapers in urban settings. Using techniques similar to glass houses, vertical farms could augment natural light using energy-efficient lighting. The advantages are numerous, including year-round crop production, protection from weather, support urban food autonomy and reduced transport costs.

Scientifically viable in 2023; mainstream and financially viable in 2027.

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15 Emerging Agriculture Technologies That Will Change The World

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Policy Horizons Canada worked with futurist and data visualizer Michell Zappa of Envisioning to produce a report called MetaScan 3: Emerging Technologies and accompanying infographics . We are reproducing the summary for emerging agriculture technologies . Below are technologies related to agricultural and natural manufacturing under four key areas of accelerating change: Sensors, Food, Automation and Engineering.

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You could not have stable populations without agriculture.

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You could not have stable populations without agriculture.

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I chose this quote because it puts the history of agriculture into perspective for viewers. We as a society would never have become what we are today without the advancements of farming technology. From the basic shovel and dirt to the horse pulled plow, tot he automated machinery that we have access to today. The amount of food produced, if any at all could not be what it is today without technological progress. Not to mention our farmers deserve the technology they have.

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There are many options for those wishing to study an agriculture-based degree due to the nature of the breadth of the subject. With the exploration of modern concepts such as GM, environmental change, sustainability as well as the business and scientific sides, potential students are spoiled for choice for employment and degree options. In most cases, an undergraduate degree should be enough to find good employment and students in the US taking an undergraduate degree have a distinct advantage over other countries due to the size of the industry here. There remains a shortage of agriculture graduates too, so it should not be difficult to find gainful employment. For those entering into agriculture as a career, once you have chosen this as a major it would be wise to choose such related subjects as chemistry, nutrition, biology and any environmental options your college or university might offer. With an undergraduate degree, you can manage farms and ranches, fisheries and forests, work with soil conservation or many other "outdoors" options.

For research degrees, for example those related to the environment, genetics and selective breeding, agricultural engineering and technology, an advanced degree is a likely requirement - typically an MS if you want to focus on lab work rather than field work.

Learn more about the many careers in agriculture.

Agriculture is defined as the cultivation and exploitation of animals, plants (including fungi) and other forms of organic life for human use including food, fiber, medicines, fuel and anything else. It is, and has been since there was an agricultural market, one of the largest employers of people; in the USA today, agriculture represents 20% of the US economy (1). Before organised agriculture, it is believed that the food supply could provide for just 4 million people globally (21).

Even as technology changes, agriculture adapts and could never become obsolete - even in a time when it might conceivably be vastly different from what it might have been at the dawn of agriculture. After all, we are always going to need to increase the number of crops we grow for food and for clothing, dyes and oils, seed development and engineering to cope with the growing needs of the world's population, even if the picture is not as bleak as the most conservative concerns might suggest (2). Today, agriculture is as much a science as an art. With a need to cope with the growing needs of the planet's population, and to find ways to keep producing food and other crops as we expand into marginal landscapes, and adapt to a changing climate, changes in agriculture practices, food technology and bio technology will continue to be a big part of human civilization.

The History of Agriculture

Prehistory

For most of our existence, humans were hunter-gatherers. This means that people lived a nomadic lifestyle, moving with the seasons to follow the food supply. As the glaciers retreated and plant life patterns and growth areas changed in response, it meant that the need to move so often became slightly less essential - though undoubtedly the lifestyle carried on for thousands of years as people sought to maximize their resource acquisition (4, p574-5). Hunter-gatherer societies would have known which crops were best to exploit with each season.

The "hunter-gatherer" moniker can be a misnomer as it is believed today that nomadic communities didn't suddenly just decide one day to stop moving and to set up permanent settlements - though the reasons for the transition have been explored in great deal and is still not settled (4, p561-3). It is likely that some degree of semi-nomadic lifestyle developed where people simply set up camps for several years at a time, cordoning off areas of wild crops that had the most abundant resources (5, p146). It is also likely that they had herds of livestock that they took with them wherever they moved, keeping them secure to exploit for milk, meat, fur and other resources. The need to protect stores of food for the next season may also have played a part.

Archaeologists and palaeontologists have traced the origins of farming to around 10,000 years ago, to somewhere in the Indus Valley, and possibly as a separate development in China along the Yangtze River (6). It is known that humans first domesticated crops and later livestock in great enough numbers to recognize the signs of deliberate exploitation (5, p141-3).

Early Civilization

Early civilization can be considered a boom time in agricultural science and technology. Around 5500 BC (7, p26-28), the Sumerian civilization of the Middle East and other early pre Greco-Roman civilizations understood the need for a specialized agricultural workforce for their societies to thrive. It is in this period that we saw the invention of irrigation amongst other things, and this specialised workforce, and focus on agricultural technology allowed the development of the first cities. In turn, these drove the first written laws and led to the development of complex societies. From this point of view, agriculture drives civilisation: including religious practices, social attitudes and legal codes.

Ancient Egypt had one of the most complex societies of the ancient world before the rise of the Greek civilization, and it was mostly thanks to their agricultural system (7, p27-8). The River Nile relied heavily on the seasons and each year, the river would flood its banks and part of the surrounding countryside (called The Inundation). Their civilization and indeed their religious structure (8), was built around the life-giving nature of the River Nile and the kingdom's heavy reliance on the river and delta system (9). Most of Egypt was and still is desert with a few key oases, which means that the agriculture centered on a very small part of the country.

The Greeks and Romans took much of their agricultural technology from other civilizations with which they had contact - most notably those of the ancient Near East such as Mesopotamia, via Sumeria. From Egypt, those societies took direct influence once the country was conquered by Alexander the Great and later by the Roman Republic. It was here at the birth of modern civilization that we saw true large-scale animal and plant agriculture (10). Technology may not have advanced a great deal, but the processes made agriculture efficient enough to sustain the empire's large cities, making it a necessary industry.

Early to Modern Civilization

The Middle East continued to see much innovation in the agricultural industries, something that historians refer to as The Arab Agricultural Revolution (10). This was thanks to the diversity of the local topographies, the crops grown in the Middle East and Indus Valley that European societies coveted, and later acted as a trade bridge between Far East and Europe (11).

In Europe, little changed before the rise of the kingdoms around the 11 th century when the Church became major landholders and traders, leaders, educators and held both temporal and spiritual powers. The systems instigated through feudalism, whether secular lords or church holdings, sought to improve yields with the growing population, and naturally we saw significant technological advances in this period too (12). It was a period of massive selective cross-breeding, particularly in animal livestock, and systems of organisation. In some areas of Europe, we can see the remnants of the agricultural system today in the form of medieval ridge and furrow strip farming. It is thanks to the monasteries of Europe that we see advances into what we call "marginal landscapes" (13) - areas where crops do not grow in great numbers the we see agricultural engineering on an unprecedented scale. Floodplains were drained, wild woodlands converted to plains and bracken cleared for pasture, areas with low fertility were converted or altered to make proper use of them (14); for example, barley grows well on salty soil, making it ideal to grow on floodplains. Modern agricultural practices saw its final modern development in the 16 th century when farmers came up with crop rotation - the idea that one could increase yields by switching land use around every year in order not to exhaust the soil. One year the field would have crops planted, the following year it would be used for livestock and the third it would be kept fallow (15). Though earlier societies had used it to a certain extent, only in the 16 th century was the method perfected.

The Americas

Mass agricultural practices were not particularly present in North America until the arrival of the European colonists. It's certainly not true that the Native Americans had no agriculture; indeed, there is evidence for some limited agricultural practices (16) but it was not universal across the tribes. Some were completely nomadic and some were largely static - these were not geographical either, some tribes in the east had completely domesticated crops. When we look at the south-western states, particularly Arizona and New Mexico, we see agriculture on an industrial scale - especially the cultivation of maize crops that were introduced from modern Mexico, the rest of Mesoamerica and beyond. It is likely that agriculture came to the North America relatively late, perhaps between 2500 and 2000 BC and we see it extensively with such civilizations as the Hohokam, the Anasazi and ancient Pueblos (17), possibly developing in Mesoamerica around 6000 BC with the domestication of maize.

In Mesoamerica and South America, with the Inca, the Maya, Olmecs and the Aztecs, relatively early development of agriculture permitted the building of enormous cities that impressed the European colonizers; it was quickly identified that these civilizations had an impressive agriculture-based economy that stood on a par with Europe, challenging what was then understood about the development of civilization. In Mesoamerica it was corn and in South America it was the humble potato (18) - today the staple crop of most people in the western world, along with coca and the domestication of animal species such as llama and alpaca.

Modern Farming

Modern farming began around the 18 th century in what is generally referred to as "The British Agricultural Revolution" when several advances and changes were made to farming in a short space of time that saw massive increases in yield and a more efficient process. The three field crop rotation system was replaced with a four field system and sweeping enclosure acts regulated land management, selective cross-breeding began on an industrial scale to increase crop size as well as yields creating several cultivars in the process. Animal husbandry also improved, leading to a greater surplus than had been permissible under the old system. It is said that these changes permitted the industrial revolution and even greater concentration of urban development, fueling the empire. How so? More crops for fewer workers, better methods of keeping and replacing nutrients in the soil meant that more people could work in industry. When the Corn Laws in England were repealed, it began the global food economy; about the same time, Charles Darwin's Theory of Evolution put agriculture on the modern path of a science as we began to understand the development of crops.

The next changes would not be until the War Years when the military powers developed (and needed with rationing) intensive farming; it has been a god-send, and since 1970, global cereal production has quadrupled (20). New plastics as well as the development of nitrates (19) allowed even greater yields once more and it has through this system, now in place for almost a century, allowed greater access to food much more cheaply. Yet for some, the environment has paid a price that some agricultural scientists have tried to address.

The Ecological Age

"Sustainability" is the buzzword today as we look to balance several conflicting needs - to protect the environment and to instigate practices that protects it while providing for the growing needs of the future population growth. Today, our food supply feeds 7 billion people and there is still enough surplus for more going forward (20). We know though that some of these practices have had an adverse effect on the land. Too many trees are being cut down to make way for agricultural land (livestock and crops), and soils are becoming exhausted quickly while destroying ecosystems.

There have been questions about the use of some herbicides and pesticides and the last few decades have seen many harmful substances banned in North America and the EU. We are still agreeing on global standards and trying to redefine the parameters of what is agriculturally and ecologically sound, catering to our crop needs while not damaging it for future generations. Agricultural technology may possibly be on the verge of another revolution as biotech moves to the forefront of agricultural science.
Sources

1. http://www.maine.gov/doe/agriculture/

2. http://www.futurist.com/articles-archive/future-of-agriculture/

3. http://pages.ucsd.edu/~dkjordan/arch/neolithic/Neo1-AgRev.html

4. http://classes.uleth.ca/200701/anth1000b/foraging%20to%20farming.pdf

5. http://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/12211496/S0959774300001815a%202.pdf?sequence=2

6. http://lib.gig.ac.cn/local/nature/449,459.PDF

7. http://pleasanton.k12.ca.us/avhsweb/murphyc/web/apworld/summer/farm.pdf

8. http://fathom.lib.uchicago.edu/1/777777190168/

9. http://www.jstor.org/stable/263080?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

10. http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2116954?sid=21105910120473& uid=3738032&uid=2&uid=4

11. http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/hort_306/text/lec22.pdf

12. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=SaJlbWK_-FcC&pg=PA270&lpg=PA270&dq=medieval+china+agriculture&hl=en#v=onepage&q=medieval%20china%20agriculture&f=false

13. https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=adHIaVe-zBgC&pg=PA69&lpg=PA69&dq=Living+in+a+Vale+of+Tears.+Cistercians+and+Site+Management+in+France&source=bl&ots=ggKINyyIzH&sig=dtP4PvcY3A9DDZboHF4KsxfuaRE&hl=en&sa=X&ei=5TrnVPTBGOmu7Ab5h4GQAg&ved=0CCMQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Living%20in%20a%20Vale%20of%20Tears.%20Cistercians%20and%20Site%20Management%20in%20France&f=false

14. http://irs.ub.rug.nl/dbi/43789b8bae214

15. https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?pid=124

16. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=OMNoS-g1h8cC&pg=PA867&dq=artistic+potato&hl=en#v=onepage&q=artistic%20potato&f=false

17. http://www.fs.fed.us/rm/pubs_rm/rm_gtr272/rm_gtr272_181_188.pdf

18. http://www.pnas.org/content/102/41/14694

19. http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/hort_306/text/lec32.pdf

20. http://cedarcreek.umn.edu/biblio/fulltext/t1860.pdf

Birds as Environmental Indicators

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There are many options for those wishing to study an agriculture-based degree due to the nature of the breadth of the subject. With the exploration of modern concepts such as GM, environmental change, sustainability as well as the business and scientific sides, potential students are spoiled for choice for employment and degree options.

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We've never had to go to war for a shortage of food like other countries have. 

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We've never had to go to war for a shortage of food like other countries have. 

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I chose this quote because it makes a very bold and true statement about our agriculture system and the cozy state of our nation regarding foreign affairs. We do not struggle for the food we have, and most of those that do in this country have aid programs they can turn to in order to attain what they need. We have never had to fight our own leaders to acquire the food that we have and i think most people in this country including myself never really out that to thought until watching this show.

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Last year's Arab Spring, which toppled governments in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, had a seemingly mundane, yet consistent motivating factor: the price of food. At the beginning of it all, the protests against Tunisian dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali were demonstrations against high bread prices. This is not to say that outrage over the rising prices was the only cause, but it was certainly an important one.

It's difficult to delineate the myriad causes that go into uprisings or wars, but food - access to it, the price of it, and its distribution - has often been a significant factor. Some of those conflicts verge on the comical: Iceland and the United Kingdom were engaged in a series of naval skirmishes from the 1950s to the 1970s over fishing rights in the North Atlantic in what was known as the Cod War. There was also a Salt War in the 15 th century, between papal allies and the duke of Ferrara in Italy, over control of the then-valuable commodity of salt.

But most such engagements are deadly serious, and they span history. Back during the Roman Empire, Cicero documented that the increase in bread was leading to social unrest at home. So the Romans did what they do best: they brandished their imperial muscle and took other people's grains, in this case Egypt's, to placate their citizens.

On the war front, famine is often used as a tool to destroy one's enemies. Such was the case during the siege of Leningrad, an appalling 872-day stretch when the Germans cut off supply lines to the Russian city during World War 2: an estimated 1.5 million people died of famine.

More recently, in Sudan, two million people have died, mostly of hunger, during the civil war there. In Somalia, the militant Islamist group, Al-Shabab, prohibited food aid to reach the people it wants to suppress. And when young men are starving, they are more prone to join the group that controls the food, which happened to be Al-Shabab. While tens of thousands of people have starved to death, the World Food Program had to suspend its operations after many of its aid workers were killed.

For now and the future, food looks to be an even more important force in the conflicts our planet will have to endure. With an ever-expanding population, now topping seven billion people, and with increasingly large swaths of that population enjoying greater resource-burning lifestyles, there's even more pressure on the world's food.

In 2007-2008, a spike in food prices led to riots across the planet, from Haiti to Yemen to Bangladesh. When a heat wave in Russia means people in Libya are going to have to pay double for their bread, our planet looks quite fragile. We might not appreciate how a spike in food prices can cause such unrest, but take a look at these numbers, as noted by Lester Brown in last year's enlightening "Food Issue" of Foreign Policy: Americans generally spend less than 10% of their income on food, but there are 2 billion people who live in poverty around the globe who spend 50 to 70 percent of their income on food. A slight increase for them means a whole lot.

It's ironic to note that, in response to the food crisis of 2008, powerful countries such as Saudi Arabia, South Korea and China ventured beyond their borders to grow grain in cheaper regions, such as Ethiopia and Sudan, where, of course, people are often starving. It's reminiscent of what Rome once did with the Egyptians (and we know how that ended.)

Managing the planet's resources has never been more vital. And, for all of the talk about oil, it might just be bread that matters most.
How to help: Donate to Oxfam to aid victims of the East Africa food crisis.

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A Brief History of Food & War - Food Republic

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Last year's Arab Spring, which toppled governments in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, had a seemingly mundane, yet consistent motivating factor: the price of food. At the beginning of it all, the protests against Tunisian dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali were demonstrations against high bread prices.