Creating Abundance: Biological Innovation and American Agricultural Development

by Alan L. Olmstead , Paul W. Rhode

• ISBN13: 9780521673877
• ISBN10: 0521673879
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-09-08
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

This book demonstrates that American agricultural development was far more dynamic than generally portrayed. In the two centuries before World War II, a stream of biological innovations revolutionized the crop and livestock sectors, increasing both land and labor productivity. Biological innovations were essential for the movement of agriculture onto new lands with more extreme climates, for maintaining production in the face of evolving threats from pests, and for the creation of the modern livestock sector. These innovations established the foundation for the subsequent Green and Genetic Revolutions. The book challenges the misconceptions that, before the advent of hybrid corn, American farmers single-mindedly invested in labor-saving mechanical technologies and that biological technologies were static.

Author Biography

Alan L. Olmstead is Director of the Institute of Governmental Affairs, Distinguished Professor of Economics, and member of the Giannini Foundation of Agricultural Economics at the University of California, Davis Paul W. Rhode is McClelland Professor of Economics at the University of Arizona and Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. xi
Introduction	p. 1
The Red Queen and the Hard Reds: Productivity Growth in American Wheat, 1800-1940	p. 17
Corn: America's Crop	p. 64
Cotton: Varietal Innovation and the Making of King Cotton	p. 98
Cotton and Its Enemies	p. 134
The Other Revolution in the Cotton Economy: Cotton's Revival in the Twentieth Century	p. 155
That "Stincking Weede of America": The Evolution of Tobacco Production	p. 199
California: Creating a Cornucopia	p. 223
More Crops, More Animals: Livestock and Feeds in the Farm Economy	p. 262
Defining and Redesigning America's Livestock	p. 284
Nature's Perfect Food: Inventing the Modern Dairy Industry	p. 330
Draft Power	p. 361
Tying It Together	p. 386
References	p. 403
Index	p. 453
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