Study Note - Agricultural changes – how do they affect population?

Here is a graph from the World Bank showing the decline in the percentage of the world’s population living in rural areas:

Rural population (% of total population) Data from World Bank

From 1960 the percentage of the world’s population living in rural areas has decreased from a high of 67.2% to 49.7% in 2009. The proportion of the labour force working in agriculture has decreased markedly every year, particularly in more economically developed countries. Part of this is down to the mechanisation of agriculture, reducing the number of man-hours required to grow a product. The industrialisation of agriculture has also moved much of the actual labour involved into the factory or packaging plant, to sell the product to a larger market.

The above graph should be looked at in context however, with this table indicating the percentage of the total population living in rural areas in different parts of the world:

Figures may also be misleading due to the seasonal nature of agricultural work, and the large proportion of migrant workers in developed countries. Statistics from Oxfam show that 95% of crop workers in the United States come from Mexico, while the rest mostly come from Guatemala, El Salvador, Haiti and Jamaica. Only 14% of the work in US crop agriculture is full time, and as much as 83% of the work is purely seasonal. The remaining 3% is year-round part time work.

The World Bank is a wonderful resource, with data covering many useful statistics regarding population change. Take a moment to explore the website and see if you can detect the trends shown above, and think about the reasons that might be behind them, particularly the effects of mechanisation and urbanisation.