A Closer Look
Broiler Industry
The broiler industry was one of the success stories in American agriculture during the last century and is an example of how the use of technology, improvements in production practices, and product marketing can change the basic structure of agriculture.
Broiler meat has been improved and is now a healthy, nutritious, convenient product available at a price lower than it was 50 years ago. Broilers have the best feed conversion ratio of any domesticated land-based animal. Until 1920, chicken meat was considered a luxury reserved for special occasions. Chickens were strictly a by-product of egg production, as cockerels and unproductive hens were culled from the laying flock. Efforts to raise chickens for meat had been spotty and short-lived. In the mid 1920's production of chickens for meat reached significant levels, and the poultry industry in the United States has evolved dramatically ever since. Scientists developed ways to meet the nutritional needs of chickens kept in protective environments, making large-scale, year-round production possible. Broiler production emerged in the 1930's as a separate industry that operated year-round, rather than one producing only seasonal "spring chickens." During World War II, the biggest broiler customer was the U.S. army. In the 1950's and 1960's, vertical integration became common, with a single company involved in every process, stabilizing the rapidly changing relationships between inputs, production, and marketing segments. In the 1970's and 1980's the broiler industry continued to implement improved production practices involving nutrition, disease eradication, genetics, and meat processing. In the 1990's, the United States Government helped sponsor broiler parts exports. The volume of exports skyrocketed to approximately 17 percent of American production. |
Cold Storage
Technological advances did not always involve machinery used in the production process. Changes in the way food is stored are another example of how technology has affected agriculture.
Refrigerated warehouses are facilities, artificially cooled to 50 degrees Fahrenheit or lower, where food products are generally stored for 30 days or more. Major factors contributing to the growth of the warehousing industry since the 1930's have included technological advances and improvements in equipment and transportation facilities, along with better knowledge of product handling procedures and the storage environment. Wider consumer acceptance of the ever-growing variety of food marketed in a frozen state fostered tremendous demand for refrigerated space. |
COncentrated OJ
Another example of technology's effect on agriculture is the processing of oranges for frozen concentrated orange juice (FCOJ). The Florida Department of Citrus invented frozen concentrated orange juice in 1945, and gave the patent to the United States Government in 1948, which helped make the frozen food industry commercially viable.
Few, if any, oranges were processed before the 1931-32 season in Florida. For that season, 98 percent of oranges produced were marketed as fresh and the other 2 percent were processed. By the end of the 1940's, however, the share of oranges going to processing had increased to 40 percent. Five years later, that share was nearly 70 percent. By the 1970's, over 90 percent of oranges produced in Florida were processed, as they still are today. Within the next 30 years, the value of orange production in Florida had topped $1 billion (packinghouse door equivalent, PHD) annually and was valued at $1.3 billion PHD for the 1998-99 crop year. There are a number of reasons FCOJ became popular. It is convenient and time saving compared to squeezing juice at home. It readily pours when thawed, easily reconstitutes with water, and is pleasantly cool immediately. |