🔍 Read the full analysis: What We Can Learn From A Time When Almost Everyone Farmed on ThorstenMeyerAI.com
Prime made for students and young adults
- Fast, free delivery for dorm and study essentials
- Prime Video and Amazon Music included
- Member-only deals
TL;DR
A November 3 article from ThorstenMeyerAI.com traces how farming’s share of work fell as machinery, fertiliser and improved crops increased output. It argues that agriculture offers a case study for automation, while stressing that the shift took about two centuries in the United States and that 928 million people still work in agriculture worldwide.
An article published November 3 by Thorsten Meyer examines how farming went from employing roughly three in four US workers around 1800 to about 1.5% today, using the change to explore how technology reshapes work. The account describes a gradual shift driven by tools, fertiliser and crop breeding, not a single invention—and notes that about 928 million people worldwide still work in agriculture.
Meyer cites economic historian Stanley Lebergott’s estimate, published by the US Census Bureau, that 1.4 million of the 1.9 million people in the US labour force in 1800 worked in agriculture, or 73.7%. The figures for years before 1840 are estimates rather than census counts. The total included about 530,000 enslaved people, who were compelled to work; the article notes that any account of early American farm labour must include that fact.
The change unfolded through several advances. A steel plough made by blacksmith John Deere in 1837 could shed sticky Midwestern soil more effectively than earlier designs, according to the company’s history. Later, machinery including reapers, threshers and tractors altered farm work. In the 1960s, short-straw wheat varieties developed by breeders around Norman Borlaug could support more grain without falling over, particularly with irrigation and fertiliser, the Nobel Foundation says.
Fertiliser was another part of the shift. Fritz Haber filed a patent in 1908 for synthesising ammonia from its elements; industrial production followed. Meyer also cites India’s official harvest figures: wheat output rose from 12.3 million tonnes in 1964-65 to 26.4 million tonnes in 1971-72. The article says US farm output in 2023 was nearly three times its 1948 level, with only a small rise in total inputs. These figures illustrate increased output, though they do not by themselves describe all costs or effects of agricultural change.
Agriculture as an Automation Case Study
The history matters because it challenges the simple idea that fewer workers in a sector necessarily mean less of what that sector produces. Meyer reports that global cereal harvests grew 4.2-fold from 1961, while the world population grew 2.7-fold over the same period. In the United States, farm output also rose substantially as employment shrank. These measures support the narrower conclusion that productivity gains can allow fewer workers to produce more; they do not establish that every worker displaced from farming benefited equally or immediately.
The article applies that lesson to current debates about automation in other industries. Farming shows that a sector can become far less labour-intensive, but the transformation took a long time and depended on multiple changes in technology and production. Meyer’s projection that automation could affect up to 90% of a sector within a decade or a few decades is explicitly his thesis, not a measured forecast. The agricultural example makes the possibility worth examining, not the timing or scale certain.
For readers, the distinction is practical: productivity and employment can move in different directions, and shifts in work may play out over generations. The story also resists treating “farm work” as a single, finished chapter. About one in four workers worldwide still works in agriculture, according to the International Labour Organization estimate cited in the article.
Popular right now
Dyson Ball Animal 3 Upright Vacuum
Breville BES870XL Barista Express Espresso Machine, Brushed Stainless Steel
LG 85-Inch QNED84B Mini LED 4K Smart TV (2026)
As an affiliate, we earn on qualifying purchases.
A Long Shift Across Countries
The article compares the United States with several countries at different points in their histories. Economic historians estimate that around 85% of Japan’s gainfully occupied population worked in the primary sector in 1872, a category that included farming, forestry and fishing. China’s official series begins in 1952, when 83.5% of employed people worked in the primary sector. India’s 1951 census counted cultivators and agricultural labourers as 69.7% of workers.
Historical comparisons are not perfectly aligned: some figures cover agriculture alone, while others include forestry and fishing, and sources use different definitions of employment. The article also notes that Germany’s first official occupational census, in 1882, counted 43.4% of workers in agriculture and forestry, while the count underrepresented women helping on family farms. In Germany, farming’s share fell from 43% to 25% between 1882 and 1939, even as the number of farm workers remained between 8 million and 10 million.
The US trend also shows why workforce share and headcount should not be confused. The number of American farm workers continued to rise until about 1910, reaching an estimated 11.8 million, even as the sector’s share of employment began to decline. Today, the article cites agriculture’s share of workers at about 43% in India, 1.5% in the US and 1% in Germany.
“The share fell long before the headcount.”
— Thorsten Meyer
Limits of the Historical Comparison
The long-run figures come from different sources and do not all measure the same thing. The US estimate for 1800 is a reconstruction, not a census result; Japan’s 1872 figure is an economic historians’ estimate and includes forestry and fishing; and early German counts underrepresented women’s farm work. Comparisons across countries and centuries should be read with those limits in mind.
The article does not establish a single cause for the fall in agricultural employment. It describes interacting changes in equipment, fertiliser, seeds and production, but does not quantify how much each contributed or how effects varied by region and household. Its proposed 90% automation scenario is also not supported in the supplied material by a defined sector, measurement method or forecast model. The path and consequences of automation in other industries remain uncertain.
The Series Turns to Machinery
Meyer presents the article as Episode 2 of “Work After Work”, a series about how the economy is built. The source says Episode 3 will cover the mechanical reapers, threshers and tractors that followed earlier changes in farm tools. That installment may add detail to the machinery portion of this account; the article gives no publication date.
The broader question raised here is whether other sectors will follow agriculture’s path, and how quickly. The historical record offers a comparison, not a timetable. Readers will need evidence from later episodes and from current industries to assess how technology changes output, employment and the kinds of work available.
Key Questions
How many US workers farmed around 1800?
Stanley Lebergott’s estimate, published by the US Census Bureau, puts the figure at 73.7% of the labour force in 1800. The estimate covers people aged 10 and older and includes enslaved workers; it is not based on a census count.
How many people work in agriculture worldwide today?
The article cites an International Labour Organization estimate of 928 million people in 2025, or about one in four workers worldwide.
Did fewer farm workers mean less food was produced?
The figures cited in the article show output rising as farming became less labour-intensive: global cereal harvests increased 4.2-fold from 1961 while population increased 2.7-fold. The comparison concerns production and population over that period; it does not capture every aspect of food access or agriculture’s effects.
Does farming prove that automation will eliminate most jobs in other sectors?
No. The article presents farming as a historical case study, but its suggestion that automation might affect up to 90% of a sector is Meyer’s thesis, not an established forecast. The pace and impact of automation elsewhere remain uncertain.
Source: ThorstenMeyerAI.com
