5.7: Agricultural Commodity Chains & Economies of Scale

What has led to major shifts in food production?

• Reduction in agricultural research

• Increase in manual farming techniques

• Decrease in global temperatures

• Advancements in farming equipment, transportation, fertilizers, pesticides, and GMOs

What is a negative change in agriculture mentioned in the text?

• Increase in food production

• Concerns over animal rights

• Rise in manual labor

• Decrease in food prices

What has the industrialization of agriculture resulted in?

• Increased yields and cheaper food

• More family farms

• Higher costs for consumers

• Decrease in food production

What is a commodity chain?

• A method of reducing farming costs

• A government policy on agriculture

• A process used by companies to gather resources, transform them into goods, and distribute them to consumers

• A type of farming equipment

What does 'economies of scale' mean?

• A measurement of farm size

• A type of agricultural product

• A financial support system for small farms

• A company's ability to reduce its average cost of production due to increased production

Why do family farms struggle to compete with large corporate farms?

• Preference for organic farming

• Lack of skilled labor

• Higher quality of produce

• Inability to achieve economies of scale

What trend is observed in the size and number of farms in the United States?

• Stable number of farms but increase in size

• Increase in both the number and size of farms

• Decrease in the number of farms and increase in the average farm size

• Decrease in both the number and size of farms

What has enabled the growth in total farm output without much increase in inputs?

• Increase in manual labor

• Reduction in the use of technology in farming

• Innovations in animal and crop genetics, chemicals, equipment, and farm organization

• Decrease in global demand for food

What is one of the debates surrounding modern agriculture?

• Whether to use manual or automated farming techniques

• The consolidation of farms, concerns over animal and worker rights, and use of chemicals and antibiotics

• Choosing between crop farming or livestock farming

• The role of government subsidies in farming

What has been the impact of technology on agriculture?

• Reduction in food production

• Decrease in the variety of crops produced

• Change in how food is produced and how agriculture is organized

• Increased need for human labor