Listen to episode 1 below, or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Amazon Music.
In 1900, 40% of the American labor force worked in agriculture. Today, it’s only about 1%.
Let that sink in.
In a little over a century, farming went from being the primary way people made a living to a job held by only one in every hundred workers, even as the national population skyrocketed. And nowhere is that transformation more visible than in the nation’s heartland.
The American Midwest is the land of big agriculture. Endless rows of corn, soybeans, wheat and livestock operations roll by for mile after mile after mile. About a third of the entire country’s corn supply is grown by just two states: Iowa and Illinois. And the typical Midwestern farm sits on around 600 acres of land, making them about 25% larger on average than farms in the rest of the country.
The Midwest didn’t always look this way, though. Just a few centuries ago, before colonization, Native Americans lived in a land that was swampy and heavily forested. As settlers arrived, lured westward by the promise of cheap land and fertile soil, a new economic and social structure began to take shape. The landscape was dotted with small farms that grew a variety of crops and were organized around the nuclear family.
It’s easy to forget the fact that that way of life was the American standard for centuries. Today, the national spotlight shines brightest on the coasts, and the Midwest is often shrugged off as flyover country.
So how did we get here?
How did the Midwest turn from the land of “Old MacDonald” into the land of Big Ag in next to no time? And is there any need — or any hope — for another agricultural revolution?
To explore more about the Midwest’s agricultural history, check out the data visuals below.
Since the mid-1800s, the share of Americans employed in agriculture has fallen from over half the workforce to a tiny fraction of it, even as the country’s population has grown
Average farm size in the U.S. began to grow steadily after World War II, doubling from about 140-200 acres to around 400-500 acres.
In the Midwest, the largest farms are found in North and South Dakota, which average well over 1,400 acres per farm — more than three times the national average of 466 acres, as shown by the dotted line in the chart above.
The top ten corn-producing U.S. states are all from the Midwest. Iowa and Illinois together produce roughly one third of the entire country’s corn supply.
U.S. farms have become both bigger and more efficient over time. The crop‑by‑crop trends in yield per hectare since the 1960s show consistent increases for corn, soybeans, wheat and several specialty crops, meaning each acre now produces far more food than it did a few generations ago.
