How the American Agricultural Model Works

As is well known, the United States is the world’s largest exporter of agricultural products, ranking first in terms of corn, soybeans, cotton, and meat production.

Why is American agriculture so powerful? How does the American agricultural model operate?

1、 Farm mode

In the United States, there are approximately 2 million farms of all sizes, of which 86% are private farms. Farms in the United States are composed of various forms of ownership, including proprietorship, partnership, and corporation. The US agriculture is highly developed and highly polarized, with 50% of agricultural products produced by 2% of large farms.

2、 The professionalism of American farmers is very high

In the United States, not everyone can engage in agriculture, and 20% of American farmers have a university degree. Intelligent and digital agricultural machinery and equipment require a certain level of technology, and operating these devices without any technical skills is not feasible. Therefore, it seems that American farmers do not eat for nothing.

3、 Agriculture adopts order based production

Unlike Chinese agriculture, American agriculture produces, processes, and sells according to contracts, which effectively avoids operational risks caused by market price fluctuations.

Agriculture in the United States is like industrial production, where farms are factories, cultivated land is production lines, and farms or agricultural companies complete all production, processing, and sales processes.

Three of the world’s four major grain warehouses are owned by the United States, which controls 80% of global grain trading volume. The Plantation and breeding industries in the United States have achieved regional specialization, scale, mechanization and intensive development. The American agriculture is so excellent because it follows the industrialized production model. Plant with orders, and cultivate and repair without orders. Vocational education for farmers, organizing family farms for entrepreneurial management.

With the rapid development of China’s economy, the drawbacks of the traditional small-scale agricultural economic development model have become increasingly prominent, and large-scale and modern agriculture has become the major trend of China’s agricultural development in the future. Some models and experiences in modern agriculture in the United States are very worthy of our reference and learning. We hope that one day, Chinese agriculture can surpass the United States and become a world industrial and agricultural power!