Agriculture

By reducing the time required to process raw cotton into usable stock, the cotton gin revolutionized the economy of the antebellum South, quickly establishing cotton as the dominant American export.

The establishment of commodity markets allowed for efficient trading.

The family of César Chávez ran a small farm and a local store in Yuma, Arizona, but with the onset of the Great Depression, his family lost everything.

The United States has long been a world leader in the production and exportation of cereal crops, especially corn.

Carver conducted scientific research on such crops as peanuts, soybeans, sweet potatoes, and pecans.

Instituted during World War II, the bracero program brought a much-needed influx of Mexican laborers to the fields of the American West, making California the breadbasket of the United States and of much of the world.

The Department of Agriculture was created to boost national agricultural production, but it later acquired responsibility for ensuring the safety of the nation’s food supply as well.

Farming advances and efficiencies have made the United States one of the world’s largest exporters of agricultural products.

First coined in 1955, the term “agribusiness” denoted an increasing consolidation of American agricultural resources that was driven by considerations of efficiency.

Commodity markets are markets where basic goods and materials are exchanged. Commodity markets can be as small as a local farmers market or as large as the CHICAGO BOARD OF TRADE (CBOT), the first commodity exchange in the United States (established in 1848). Generally commodity markets are located near historic centers of PRODUCTION of major commodities or in major cities like Chicago and New York.