Family Farm Threatened as Technology Raises Productivity : Science Reshaping Agriculture’s Future

A dramatic technological and scientific revolution is about to reshape agriculture.

Scientists are creating a brave new world in which plants will repel attacking insects, weeds will explode and die, electronic implants can be programmed to beep a farmer when one of his dairy cows develops a fever and cattle may even grow to the size of elephants.

Here at the University of Illinois campus, in the heart of the nation’s Farm Belt, research is under way that even may lead to food production without either farmers or farms.

During the next 20 years, as the new technology moves out of laboratories and into Midwestern fields and California dairy barns, profound changes will begin to appear in the economic structure of agriculture.

The coming transformation is certain to be as great as structural changes that followed earlier agricultural revolutions fueled by the introduction of the steel plow, affordable tractors, hybrid seeds and chemical herbicides and pesticides. The development of each of those made it easier for fewer farmers to produce more food on larger tracts of land. In the process, millions of individual farms--and farm families--disappeared.

In the mid-1930s, there were almost 7 million farms in the United States, virtually all of them family farms. Now, half a century later, the U.S. Agriculture Department estimates that of the nation’s 2.4 million farms, only 679,000 are moderate-sized, commercial family farms, the historic backbone of American agriculture.

While promising more food and fiber production at lower costs, the emerging technologies pose a renewed threat to family farms.

The “impact of technology will be its continuing role in changing the structure of the agricultural sector from a system dominated by the moderate-size farm to one dominated by large and very large industrialized farms,” a recent report from the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment concludes.

“Every time technology hits agriculture, it ends up hurting the people it’s designed to help,” said L. J. Butler, a University of Wisconsin agriculture economist.

For researchers, the survival of family farmers is not as important as the efficient production of additional food.

“The issue is not that everybody has enough to eat,” said Constantin A. Rebeiz, a University of Illinois plant physiologist, a renowned expert on photosynthesis and a pioneer in biotechnological research. “The issue is that people cannot afford to buy food. Half of the world goes to bed hungry. If you can sell them much cheaper food, a greater proportion will be able to eat.”

150 Emerging Projects

At least 150 emerging technology projects, many of them sounding more like science fiction than science, have been identified by congressional researchers. Some are already being field-tested. More than 70 of them are likely to be available by 1990, according to the Office of Technology Assessment. Another 70 are expected to be available by 2000.

They include:

--A genetically engineered soil bacteria that produces an insecticide that kills soil insects. Plant seeds are coated with a Monsanto-developed bacteria that remains around the roots, protecting them from attacking insects while the plant grows. Increased crop yields are likely to result from this research.

--Hormones that increase milk production in dairy cows. At least one of these hormones could be commercially available in 1987, increasing the daily milk output of each treated cow by 12% to 40%--at a time when there is already a huge and costly overproduction problem in the dairy industry. Introduction of this hormone could drive a number of marginal dairy operations out of business, agricultural economists say.

--A non-polluting herbicide that causes weeds to explode and die after a relatively short exposure to sunlight. Developed by Rebeiz at the University of Illinois, the herbicide is made from an amino acid that is found in all plants and animals and is used by plants in the chlorophyll-making process. Called a laser or photodynamic herbicide, this biochemical weedkiller is likely to be on the market within 24 months. Rebeiz is at work on an insecticide, using the same process. These developments are likely to lead to larger crop yields.

--A transmitter implanted in dairy cows that monitors ovulation to determine the best time for artificial insemination; that keeps track of the cow’s temperature, notifying a farmer when the animal is becoming ill; and that beeps a farmer when the cow is delivering a calf. Developed by David Zartman, Ohio State University’s dairy science department chairman, the device will be on the market within 18 months. Research is under way on other, similar devices, including one that tells a feeding station what to feed each cow to maximize its milk production. They will result in more efficient dairy herd management.

--Efforts to breed super-sized farm animals by inserting growth genes from larger creatures into smaller ones. Last month, scientists from the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Washington and the U.S. Agriculture Department reported successfully injecting human growth hormones into fertilized eggs of rabbits, pigs and sheep. This experiment raises the potential of injecting elephant or sperm whale growth hormone into embryo calves to eventually produce bovine giants.

10,000-Pound Cows

“Development of a 10,000-pound cow and . . . a pig 12 feet long and five feet high . . . are certainly within the realm of possibility in the next 10 to 20 years,” the Office of Technology Assessment said.

Growth hormone experiments and others that involve exchanging genetic material between species are among the most controversial under way. The Foundation of Economic Trends and the Humane Society of the United States have filed lawsuits attempting to stop the research. They assert that these experiments violate “the moral and ethical canons of civilization.” And they contend that researchers must prepare environmental impact statements and other similar documents before proceeding.

Although most emerging technologies are designed to make farms more efficient, one research project is designed to produce food without plants, fields, tractors or farmers. It would create food in photosynthetic reactors or giant leaf factories.

“During the 21st Century, conventional agriculture will not be adequate in meeting energy, food and fiber needs on Earth and in space,” said plant physiologist Rebeiz, who has rewritten in the last 20 years much of what science thought it knew about photosynthesis.

The Rebeiz reactor would use bio-engineered, photosynthetic membranes--or man-made leaves--to replace fields of plants. Instead of corn or cotton, the reactor would make glycerol.

‘You Can Make Anything’

“With glycerol, you can make anything,” Rebeiz said. “It’s like having an oil well.” Glycerol can be used as a basic raw material for food and fiber and as a replacement for fossil fuels.

“Biotechnology is going to change the face of agriculture--when you hear about what could be and what is already possible,” Wisconsin’s Butler said. “You may be able to take dry matter and convert it into food and bypass the need for conventional farmers. That’s still a way off, but between then and now, we’re going to see a drastically changing structure of agriculture.”

Among farmers, those with stronger economic resources are most likely to take advantage of new technology when it becomes available. This will make their farming operations more efficient, allowing them to produce more for less and increasing their economic edge over smaller farming operations. Inevitably, many of those smaller operations, unable to compete, will fail.

Bigger Surpluses Foreseen

Federal farm programs--and, ultimately, the federal budget and taxpayers--also are going to be affected by emerging technology, congressional researchers say. In its report, the Office of Technology Assessment said laboratory breakthroughs will create “a substantial potential for further U.S. surpluses” of many agricultural commodities. In the past, the government has bought these surpluses to keep farm prices up and to provide minimum incomes for farmers. This year alone, the federal government is expected to spend a near-record $18 billion on farm programs, much of it for surplus crops.

“The implication for policy makers is the need for a farm program that more easily allows for adjustments in periods of shortages and surpluses rather than remaining fixed,” the report said in a recommendation that is apparently going unheeded as Congress works on a four-year farm bill this month.

“You won’t see it in the farm bill,” economist Butler predicted. “Typically, agricultural policies struggle to put out fires, not . . . prevent them from happening. Of the two houses of Congress, he said: “As usual, they’ll struggle with (biotechnological issues) after more farmers are forced out of business.”

Researcher Wendy Leopold assisted in the preparation of this article.