🔍 Read the full analysis: When Farming Was The Work Of Almost Everyone on ThorstenMeyerAI.com
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TL;DR
A November 3, 2026, article from ThorstenMeyerAI.com traces the decline of agricultural work from about 73.7% of the U.S. labor force in 1800 to about 1.5% today. It attributes the long shift to successive changes in tools, fertilizer and crop breeding, while noting that roughly 928 million people worldwide still work in agriculture.
ThorstenMeyerAI.com published an article November 3 tracing how farming shifted from work done by most Americans to an occupation held by about 1.5% of U.S. workers. The account links the change to successive developments in farm tools, fertilizer and crop varieties, and says agriculture still employs an estimated 928 million people worldwide, or about one in four workers, based on an International Labour Organization estimate for 2025.
The article cites economic historian Stanley Lebergott’s estimate that 1.4 million of the 1.9 million people in the U.S. labor force in 1800 worked in agriculture, or 73.7%. The estimate covers workers aged 10 and older and includes about 530,000 enslaved people. Because figures before 1840 are estimates rather than census counts, the article characterizes the result as roughly three in four workers, rather than a precise count.
It presents agricultural change as a series of developments, not a single invention. A steel plough made by John Deere in 1837 is one example of improved tools; the account also describes the industrial production of ammonia fertilizer after Fritz Haber’s 1908 patent and the spread of short-straw wheat varieties in the 1960s. The article says India’s wheat harvest rose from 12.3 million tonnes in 1964–65 to 26.4 million tonnes in 1971–72, citing official statistics.
The author reports that the number of U.S. farm workers continued to rise after their share of the workforce began falling, reaching an estimated 11.8 million around 1910. The article also cites a 2025 ILO estimate of 928 million people working in agriculture globally, with national shares of about 43% in India, 1.5% in the United States and 1% in Germany. These figures describe different countries and time periods, and should not be read as a single uniform measure of agricultural work.
How Farm Productivity Changed Work
The historical shift matters because it shows that a smaller share of workers in a sector does not necessarily mean less output. The article cites data showing that global cereal harvests grew 4.2-fold from 1961, while the world’s population grew 2.7-fold over the same period. It also reports that U.S. farm output in 2023 was nearly three times its 1948 level, with only a small rise in total inputs. These comparisons are presented as evidence of rising output per worker and changes in production, not as proof that technology alone caused the gains.
The account is also relevant to current debates about automation and employment. It suggests that farming offers a historical example of major occupational change occurring over a long period, while other sectors may follow different paths. The author’s prediction that automation could affect up to 90% of a sector within a decade or a few decades is identified as a thesis, not a measured finding; the article does not establish that the same timeline or outcome applies elsewhere.
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A Long Shift Across Countries
The article places the U.S. case alongside historical estimates for other countries. It cites reconstructions suggesting that about 85% of Japan’s gainfully occupied population worked in the primary sector in 1872, a category that included farming, forestry and fishing. Germany’s first official occupational census, in 1882, recorded 43.4% of workers in agriculture and forestry, though the article notes that women’s unpaid work on family farms was undercounted.
For the period after the Second World War, the source cites figures showing that 83.5% of employed people in China worked in the primary sector in 1952 and that cultivators and agricultural laborers made up 69.7% of India’s workers in 1951. These figures use different dates, categories and methods, so they illustrate a broad historical pattern rather than a directly comparable ranking. The article’s central point is that farming’s employment share fell at different rates, and that agricultural work remains substantial in many countries.
“Farming shows a whole sector can be emptied of human hands.”
— Thorsten Meyer, author of the ThorstenMeyerAI.com article
Limits of the Historical Estimates
Several figures in the article are estimates or reconstructions rather than directly comparable census results. The U.S. figures for 1800 predate consistent census-based labor-force data, and the source says the counts may not include all women working on family farms in later German data. Country figures also refer to different years and definitions, including the broader “primary sector” in some cases.
The article does not establish how much of the rise in agricultural output came from any single factor, such as machinery, fertilizer, plant breeding, irrigation or changes in land use. Nor does it supply evidence that other industries will follow farming’s employment trajectory. Its projection about automation reaching up to 90% of a sector remains the author’s stated thesis, with no specific sector, measurement method or forecast date defined.
The Series Turns to Factories
The article is identified as Episode 2 of the series “Work After Work,” which examines how the economy is built through field, factory and office work. It says a later episode will cover mechanical reapers, threshers and tractors, extending the account of how equipment changed farming. The source gives no publication date for that installment.
For readers following the broader automation argument, the next useful evidence would be sector-specific data on employment, output and productivity, alongside clear definitions of what counts as automated work. The article’s historical account describes a long change in agriculture; whether other sectors will experience comparable shifts, and on what timeline, remains open.
Key Questions
How many Americans worked in agriculture around 1800?
The article cites Stanley Lebergott’s estimate that 1.4 million of 1.9 million U.S. workers, or 73.7%, worked in agriculture in 1800. The estimate covers people aged 10 and older and includes about 530,000 enslaved people. The source cautions that early figures are estimates, not census counts.
How many people work in agriculture worldwide?
The article cites an ILO estimate of 928 million people working in agriculture in 2025, about one in four workers globally. The source does not provide further methodological detail in the supplied material.
What changes does the article link to higher farm output?
It describes a sequence that includes improved ploughs and other machinery, industrial fertilizer made possible by ammonia synthesis, and higher-yield crop varieties such as short-straw wheat. The article does not assign a precise share of output growth to any one development.
Does the article prove automation will affect 90% of another sector?
No. The author calls the figure a thesis, not a fact. The article uses farming as a historical example but does not establish that another sector will reach that level of automation or specify how such a share would be measured.
Source: ThorstenMeyerAI.com
