The modernization of agriculture

Over the last century and a half agriculture in the developed countries has been profoundly altered. Output and productivity have greatly increased and there have been major changes in technology. Farmers who once produced mainly for home consumption now sell nearly all their produce, and whereas the inputs used were once produced on the farm, most are now purchased from industry. In addition much of the farmers’ produce is sold not directly for consumption, but to food processors. These great changes, which can be described as modernization, are closely related to the progress of industrialization and the general process of economic development. Not surprisingly there are striking spatial differences in the degree of agricultural modernization, which give rise to great differences in agricultural productivity. The principal difference is between the developed and the developing regions, although modernization has been experienced in some regions within developing countries, such as in the Indian Punjab or parts of Brazil.