🔍 Read the full analysis: How Work Changed After Almost Everyone Farmed on ThorstenMeyerAI.com
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TL;DR
A November 3, 2026, article traces how farming went from employing roughly three-quarters of U.S. workers around 1800 to about 1.5% today, while food production grew. It attributes the change to successive improvements in tools, crop varieties and fertilizer, and notes that an estimated 928 million people still work in agriculture worldwide.
Farming’s share of work has fallen dramatically over two centuries, while food production rose, according to a November 3 article by Thorsten Meyer tracing the change across the United States and other countries. The account says about 73.7% of the U.S. labor force farmed in 1800, compared with roughly 1.5% today, illustrating how tools, fertilizer and improved crop varieties let fewer workers produce more food.
The U.S. estimate for 1800 comes from economic historian Stanley Lebergott, whose historical series was published by the Census Bureau. It counts 1.4 million agricultural workers among a labor force of 1.9 million people aged 10 and older. The figures before 1840 are estimates rather than census counts, and include about 530,000 enslaved people. Meyer cautions that “about three in four” is more accurate than treating the estimate as an exact count.
The change unfolded through a series of developments, not a single invention. Meyer points to John Deere’s steel plough, made in 1837, which shed sticky soil more readily than earlier ploughs; machinery such as reapers and tractors; and fertilizer made possible by industrial ammonia production. He also describes the spread of short-straw wheat in the 1960s, whose stronger stalks could support more grain when paired with fertilizer and irrigation.
Food production data cited in the article show the scale of the change. India’s wheat harvest rose from 12.3 million tonnes in 1964-65 to 26.4 million tonnes in 1971-72, according to official statistics. Globally, cereal output increased 4.2-fold from 1961, while the population grew 2.7-fold, the article says. These measures describe different things: crop output and population, not the amount of food available to each person.
Fewer Farm Workers, More Food
The history challenges the assumption that a smaller agricultural workforce must mean less food. The figures Meyer cites show food output rising as farming employment shrank, a transformation that allowed workers to take jobs in manufacturing and services. The shift matters to current debates about automation because it offers a long-running example of technology changing the number and type of workers needed in a sector.
But farming’s past does not prove that automation in other industries will produce the same results, or that displaced workers will find comparable jobs. The gains also came through many changes over generations, rather than an immediate replacement of workers. Meyer’s suggestion that automation could eventually affect up to 90% of a sector is explicitly his thesis, not a measured finding.
The shift is also far from complete worldwide. The article cites an International Labour Organization estimate that 928 million people worked in agriculture in 2025, about one in four workers globally. It reports that agriculture accounts for 43% of workers in India, compared with about 1.5% in the United States and about 1% in Germany. National differences underline that the transition has been uneven.
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A Gradual Shift Across Countries
Historical estimates from outside the United States show that farming and other primary-sector work once accounted for a large share of employment elsewhere too. Economic historians estimate that the primary sector employed about 85% of workers in Japan in 1872. A German reconstruction puts that sector’s share at 56.7% in 1849; the first official German occupational census cited in the article recorded 43.4% in agriculture and forestry in 1882. That census may have missed women working on family farms.
The article also cites figures of 83.5% for China in 1952 and 69.7% for India in 1951. Definitions and methods differ across these historical records: some count the broader primary sector, including forestry and fishing, while others count agricultural workers. The estimates are therefore useful for describing broad patterns, but not as perfectly comparable measurements.
In the United States, the share of workers in farming fell before the number of farm workers did. Lebergott’s series puts the U.S. farm workforce at about 11.8 million in 1910, even as farming’s share of employment was declining. Germany offers a similar pattern: its agricultural share fell from 43% to 25% between 1882 and 1939 while the number of farm workers remained between 8 million and 10 million. These figures show why changes in a sector’s share should not be confused with an immediate drop in its headcount.
““The share fell long before the headcount.””
— Thorsten Meyer, article author
Limits of the Historical Estimates
The early employment figures are estimates, not complete counts. The U.S. series for 1800 covers workers aged 10 and older and includes enslaved people; its pre-1840 values are reconstructed. Some other national figures measure the primary sector rather than farming alone, and the German census may have undercounted women’s farm work. Comparisons across countries and periods should be read with those limits in mind.
The account also does not establish that the same employment pattern will follow from automation in other industries. Meyer’s possible 90% figure is a projection without a specified sector, method or detailed forecast in the supplied article. It remains unclear how future automation would affect job losses, new roles, wages or the distribution of productivity gains.
The 928 million figure is an ILO estimate for 2025, but it does not mean all those workers are farmers in the same sense or face the same prospects. The article does not provide a forecast for when agricultural employment might fall further, nor does it specify how the global estimate is distributed among types of agricultural work.
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 next installment is described as covering mechanical reapers, threshers and tractors—the machinery that expanded the role of tools in farm work. No publication date is provided in the supplied material.
For readers following the broader argument, the next useful step is to distinguish the historical evidence from predictions about other sectors. The farming record documents a long change in employment and output; it does not, by itself, establish how quickly or evenly future workplace automation will unfold.
Key Questions
How many U.S. workers farmed around 1800?
Economic historian Stanley Lebergott’s estimate puts the share at 73.7%, or 1.4 million of a 1.9 million labor force aged 10 and older. The figure is an estimate, not a census count, and includes enslaved people.
How many people work in agriculture today?
The article cites an International Labour Organization estimate of 928 million people worldwide in 2025, about one in four workers. It gives approximate shares of 43% in India, 1.5% in the United States and 1% in Germany.
Why did fewer workers become able to produce more food?
The article points to improved tools and machinery, industrial fertilizer, and higher-yield crop varieties, including short-straw wheat developed and spread during the Green Revolution. These changes increased the amount that could be produced with fewer workers.
Does farming’s history prove automation will remove most jobs in other sectors?
No. It shows that a major shift in employment happened in agriculture over a long period, but it does not establish the pace or effects of automation elsewhere. Meyer’s suggestion that automation could affect up to 90% of a sector is his thesis, not a confirmed forecast.
Source: ThorstenMeyerAI.com
