The Industrialization of Livestock Production in The United States ,

Abstract

L iv esto ck production in the U nited S tates has m oved out o f the barnyard and into the factory during the second h a lf o f the 20th century. E ntrepreneurs have developed specialized, largescale, m ass production system s for b e e f cattle, dairy cattle, broilers, eggs, turkeys, and hogs. T hey keep b e e f and d airy cattle in drylots, but house poultry and hogs in distin ctiv e purposebuilt structures. T hey have borrow ed ideas and technologies from each other, and the new p ro ­ duction system s have developed along p arallel lines. M uch in d u strialized livestock production is vertically integrated, w ith a single decision-m aking unit co n tro llin g the entire production process. T he gargantuan new operations have been highly controversial. During the second half o f the 20th century, entrepreneurs have transformed American agriculture from a cottage industry into a highly specialized system of large-scale mass production. Hart (1986) reported that successful farmers in the Com Belt have been doing precisely what their computers have told them they can do best and most efficiently. They have greatly enlarged the acreage they culti­ vate, they are specializing in producing com and soybeans for direct sale as cash crops, and they have reduced their traditional reliance on livestock. The Corn Belt has become a specialized feed-producing region for the new livestock-producing areas that have been popping up in other parts o f the country. Com and soybeans escalated from only 20% o f all sales from Com Belt farms in 1949 to 50% in 1992, and livestock sales have dropped accordingly. Between 1949 and 1992 four Com Belt states (Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio) lost part of their share o f the national market for com, hogs, cattle, poultry, and dairy prod­ ucts, and they gained national share only for soybeans (Fig. 1); their share for hogs will decline dramatically in the next decade. This paper explores changes since 1949 in the geography o f American live­ stock production, which has been moving out of the Corn Belt. It has become con­ centrated in new areas, where it enjoys the same high degree o f specialization as cash grain production in the Com Belt. Furthermore, the production o f the differ­ ent kinds o f livestock—beef, milk, broilers, eggs, turkeys, and hogs— has been developing along parallel if not converging lines toward similar large-scale mass production operations in distinctive purpose-built structures. Farmers have had to become specialists, and livestock production in the United States has moved out o f the bamyard and into the factory. In 1949 three of Dr. H art is Professor o f Geography at the U niversity o f M innesota, Minneapolis, M N 55455, and Ms. Mayda is a doctoral candidate at the University o f Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0255.