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Genuine question, is there a truly significant portion of American agriculture that is based on plowing by hand? I was under the impression that most food comes
by epmatsw 14y ago
Genuine question, is there a truly significant portion of American agriculture that is based on plowing by hand? I was under the impression that most food comes from commercial-level farms that use machinery to plow. My dad works on a pretty small farm, and they definitely don't do anything by hand at this point. I suppose that you could be referring to people who garden as a hobby, but I don't know if I'd count that.
- rdouble 14y agoPlowing is not done by hand but picking is. Sugar beet field weeding used to be done by teams of migrant workers with handheld hoes. I think they've figured out how to not have the weeds in the first place with better pesticides. Most fruits and vegetables are picked by hand.
- abstractbill 14y agoYou don't need big muscles to pick fruits and vegetables though, just endurance (I've done it for a couple of summers as a job).
- rdouble 14y agoI guess I didn't realize this was about muscles. I was just replying to the guy asking if agriculture was done by hand. Maybe shouldn't follow threads via the /comments page. I end up not knowing what the context is.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- epmatsw 14y agoMakes sense. I guess I just was imagining corn and grains, stuff that seems like it'd be easy to pick mechanically. Didn't really think about stuff like beets. Thanks for the answer though!
- bluedino 14y agoThere are still a lot of blue-collar workers.