OrionWorks wrote:
Jones, it truly astonishes me to realize that such a small country is capable of producing that much output. Puts us (The so-called Bread Basket?) to shame.
U.S. agriculture is optimized for high productivity per worker, not high productivity per hectare of land. I do not know about the Netherlands, but in Japan agriculture is more labor-intensive and yields per hectare are higher. Food costs are higher.
In the U.S. we do things like sowing rice from airplanes. When I told that to Japanese farmers, they did not believe me. Not long ago they still sowed rice by hand. Nowadays they use small tractors. It is way more labor intensive than sowing by airplane. The U.S. airplanes drop seeds, whereas the Japanese tractors plant seedlings. The latter is more difficult, but the yield is higher. Here is a photo of a sophisticated seedling-planter attachment:
http://kome.sobe.jp/images/taue/1b.jpg - Jed
